LOVEBLOWS & LOVECRIES - A CONFESSION

The debut album from No-Man finds them committing to the trip hop direction their music took in the preceding singles for the OLI label, with Tim Bowness increasingly sounding like David Sylvian (as opposed to the late-career Scott Walker sound he had on early works like Swagger) and Steven Wilson's instrumental backing drawing heavily on late Talk Talk and early trip hop. Ben Coleman's violin contributions are a key part of the texture again.

A glance at the guest spots finds a good chunk of Japan appearing on Sweetheart Raw, including Richard Barbieri, which naturally makes this significant as far as Porcupine Tree's history goes since this would be his earliest collaboration with Steven Wilson. Indeed, in recent live performances, Steven Wilson's cheekily changed the line in "Fear of a Blank Planet" from "My friend says he wants to die/He's in a band/They sound like Pearl Jam/Their clothes are all black/The music is crap" to say "He's in a band/They sound like Japan" - perhaps a self-deprecating nod to this early milestone in his career. Here, the music is, in fact, not crap - but nor is it really blazing a new trail in the trip hop sphere. If you like this sort of thing, it will be enjoyable, but if you don't have much time for the artier end of trip hop this isn't the No-Man album to win you over.