DEADWING

With 'Deadwing' Porcupine Tree continues to move into the future of music, while bringing elements of the past with them. And they do so with the prize winning formula they created with 'In Absentia' (space-metal), but without duplicating the album in anyway. While this album may not be quite as good as 'In Absentia' it is still an excellent album, a four-star performance.

What sets this album a star behind the previous is on rare occasions it lack's originality (a few riffs and choruses during a few songs), not that it completely copies anything, it's just some of the metal riffs sound oddly familiar, to PT's previous stuff or other bands. The Second flaw the album suffers from is some of the tracks pop/straight- forward rock nature. I'm not saying that pop is a bad thing, PT did pop very good on 'Stupid Dream' and Alt-ish rock great on 'In Absentia' . What sets this album's pop nature apart from the others is that they aren't spacey like IA, and they are more up- beat rock then the down-beat rock songs found on Stupid Dream. There are not that many very poppy/Alt-rock tracks on the album the album though, so don't let that fool you

To the Tracks:

'Deadwing' a very nice 9+ minute rocker that starts the album off. The song changes in tempo quite a bit, switching on and off between two versus, some nice Floyd like moments, and it moves to a instrumental piece towards the end. Very nice song. The next track 'Shallow' is the weakest song on the album. The flaws that I mentioned above become obvious here. The song has a very catchy metal riff/chorus, sounding similar to stuff out in the mainstream world. If you can get past that though the song ends with a short instrumental jam that I have found myself enjoying a bit lately. The next track 'Lazarus' continues the popish sound, in the form of a ballad. It is a very good pop ballad though with beautiful, lyrics and great piano work. 'Halo', is an odd track, with an odd bass line and very dark though provoking lyrics. It is also has a very catchy, slightly annoying chorus, on first listen. It took some time to grow on me, but it really is pretty good once you get used to it. After Halo things get really going with 'Arriving Somewhere But Not Here', a 12+ minute epic, that goes everywhere from spacey ambiance, to straight forward rock, to a rather intense metal riff. I would even go as far as to say this is the best song PT has ever done. After the intensity of 'ASBNH' it's nice to have 'Melton Scratch' next, a mellower track to slow things down a bit. The first two verses and choruses could get kind of monotonous, but the ending vocal harmonies more than make up for it. Very nice lyrics on it also. 'Open Car' another rocker to get things started up again as the album winds down. Terrible lyrics on this one., and the intro to the chorus is rather rough also. Steve singing over crunchy guitars does not work to well. It has a very good metal riff, and the mellow ending is almost perfect. Then comes another masterpiece: 'The Start of Something Beautiful' another lengthier track at around 7 minutes. It has a great bass line, excellent chorus, and sad yet dream like lyrics, an excellent climax for the album. 'Glass Arm Shattering' another slower track, with excellent vocal harmonies, and a great way to end the album.

So to sum it all up 'Deadwing' is an excellent effort by the musical masterminds Porcupine Tree, but it has it's flaws that can easily be looked past. Recommended to 99% of the prog community.