GRACE FOR DROWNING

Porcupine Tree is my favorite band of all time along with Opeth and King Crimson. I'm not one of those who thinks anything SW touches turns to gold, although it certainly seems he can turn anything into silver at the least. I don't like Blackfield all that much, the first album was good, second not so and haven't heard the third. Bass Communion and No-man I need to give a lot more time and I have a feeling they have potential to grow on me. And then there's SW's "solo" stuff. I guess calling it solo is like an alias for "Steven Wilson" as BC, IEM and early PT are certainly solo projects too if not more so.

I really liked Insurgentes unlike many people. And the film accompanying it was great too. Then came The Incident which is as far as I'm concerned PT's 2nd weakest studio album (one can barely call OTSOL a studio album but whatever) even though it wasn't a bad album. I ordered the deluxe edition of Grace for Drowning and I was not disappointed. I love the idea of double albums and both albums are very strong. I won't break them down song by song as I dislike thinking of albums as a collection of singles and would rather think of them as musical journeys. Some things to note however is the excellent playing on this record. This is without a shadow of doubt my favorite album where Jordan Rudess appears. His playing feels so much more energetic and alive than on DT albums (not a big fan of DT as you might have guessed). The jazzy drumming are also really awesome, they feel much more relaxed than Gavin Harrison's drumming. Don't get me wrong, Gavin Harrison is my favorite drummer but getting a jazz drummer was a real nice idea for this album. And of course the overall jazz and Crimson influence is very prominent on GFD and it works incredibly well. The guitar work is awesome, I especially like it on Remainder the Black Dog and of course the 23 min epic Raider II. Theo Travis has some awe inspiring solos here. And the choir and orchestra! Everything works perfectly. The production is slick and some might say over produced. Well it's SW after all and I for one like both clean and low quality production (when used right) alike. And the clean production works just flawlessly in Steven's work.

Even if this was only a 4 star album I'd give it 5 just because of the whole presentation of the deluxe edition (which is obviously the version I'm reviewing). A 120 page artbook with some beautiful photography to accompany the music, perfecting the listening experience for those willing to really appreciate to the fullest and immerse themselves in the music as it was designed to be experienced. The book itself is of very high quality material (and smells good too!). I haven't listened to the bonus CD or the Blu-ray. I don't have a surround system which I plan to get when I have the money.

I don't hesitate for a moment when I say this is Mr. Wilson's magnum opus, his masterpiece of masterpieces. I absolutely love PT and many of their albums are masterpieces to me but here Steven just outdid himself.

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