UP THE DOWNSTAIR

After "On the Sunday of life.", (which was intended to be a joke), gained some unexpected success Steve Wilson decided to put out another Porcupine Tree studio album, and see where it went. And what it turned out to be was a shorter, more polished, just plane better album then "On the Sunday of Life.", but still keeping the spacey feel that the debut album created.

Now to the Tracks: What are you listening to kicks things off. Its basically a spacey intro to get you in the mood, and leads quite nicely into Synesthesia. Synesthesia is a nice rocker to get things going, and has some nice lyrics. Monuments burn into moments is a spacey bridge, leading into the highlight of the album, Always never. Always never starts off slowly with some atmospheric effects and then Steve stars singing, which leads things into great hard rock riff. Some more spacey affects follow, which slowly builds into another hard rock riff, that ends the song. Up the downstair, the first epic of the album. A great instrumental ranging from, space rock to hard rock, to techno. Not beautiful anymore a short instrumental, with a girl talking in the background. Siren another spacey bridge, that leads into another great track: Small Fish, this one is fairly mellow, with a great lyrics, and an excellent guitar solo half way through. Burning sky, the second epic of the album in the same vein as the first, but with less techno and the hard rock riffs that almost verge onto metal. Fadeaway is another excellent track, and a great way to end the album. Sad lyrics, and fairly mellow throughout most of the song.

So all in all a very good album, probably worth five stars, but I'm only going to give it four, because it has many "Pink Floyd clone". Recommended to most Prog fans.