TIME FLIES

Porcupine Tree's latest studio effort, The Incident, has produced mixed reception, to say the least. The band, who signed with Roadrunner Records around the same time many other prog giants did (Opeth, Dream Theater, etc), showed the signs of a mainstream push from their 2007 album Fear of a Blank Planet. Their latest album, and this particular track, show an obvious anti-progression towards this mainstream outlook on music - an apparent trend in Roadrunner signed bands, as Opeth, Dream Theater, and even Nightwish have shown similar signs of poppiness on their albums as well.

On the album, which overall I did enjoy, this song ("Time Flies") was one of my favorites. However, in a typical Roadrunner fashion, the song has been trimmed of its muscle, given a fresh new haircut, and pushed into the production of a nice slightly psychedelic music video intended for mass viewing by the public. Seems like it's all good, right? Except for the fact that the video runs for a nice 5 minutes. Doesn't seem harmful, right? But wait....

The song is nearly 11 minutes on the album!!

What is with this label? More than half the song has been dutifully cut away to appease the pallet of the indie rock world, which is what this track effectively turns into. The trippy, psychedelic experimentation is gone, the lengthy, Porcupine Tree-esque soloing trimmed away. What's left is an overall nice, but rather pathetic, shell of a once really fantastic song. The lyrics are much the same and a rather nice, but without its great proggy backbone seen on the full length album, this single is like a rotting core of an apple: it's got its bare roots, but lacks the stuff that makes it tasty. 2 stars.

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