CROSSOVER PROG

That same excitement has led me to play their music on repeat, including this two-track (or four-track) mini EP which is so far their latest release (Nov 2024), and that according to their notes, marks a switch of eras in the band's history. In this 14-minute (or 28-minute) release this UK quite talented band gives us 'Fear & Love', a short but great catchy song that gathers different musical realms, like 80s synth pop, alternative rock, or modern 2000' prog rock. This song is a step forward to the band's new cycle, so it is like an introduction to their incoming music, maybe to what would be their upcoming full-lenght album.

And the epic 'Duchess Desire' marks the farewell of their 'Mannequin' era, so it is like a tribute to themselves and a form to thank and respect all the process and work they did in the past years, working their asses off to produce that amazing album. Here they deliver another excellent song where we can appreciate their endless creativity and, of course, their amazing skills as performers. I like a lot how they sound so refreshing, so actual in spite of their intrinsic 80s essence.

Yeah, those are the two tracks, however, they morph into four, because Kyros also shared the instrumental versions for both songs, so go, click to listen and enjoy.

This is what 'We Blame Chicago' is about, a compillation (5-LP album) that gathers every single song released by 90 Day Men, a quite interesting band from the US (yeah, from Chicago, you can guess) whose first steps were given 30 years ago in 1995 and whose last studio album saw the light in 2004. Maybe an underground act that belongs to a certain niche.

This release's title is actually a song taken from their third studio album named 'To Everybody', which is also to my ears, their best work. But... what do 90 Day Men play? It is an interesting mixture because through their track you will find some hints of post-rock, alternative rock, progressive rock, experimental, psychedelic music, they belong to all and to none of those genres at the same time, which is part of what makes them an enigmatic act. There are lyrics, there are moments to sing, there are purely instrumental tracks or passages, a colorful journey, indeed.

So yeah, though this release would be aimed for their die-hard fans, I believe it might be a good fit for people who barely know them and want to explore what their music is about. Not for everyone, though, but to my ears and judgement, worth it.

And "Use And Ornament" is a mellotron album, with the 'tron on every track, and he uses all nine of the mellotron sounds on this album, a rare thing. He bought his mellotron in 2005, and it was originally owned by PALLAS. Gosling has a ton of analog equipment at his disposal, and that year he went crazy buying keyboard related stuff. Jarrod also plays bass, guitars, drums, recorder and on and on. He really doesn't need any help, but he has ten guests adding their talents. Two female singers and a male vocalist are included in this, but also violin, a lot of horns and more.

We get nine tracks over 61 minutes including a lot of short pieces complimented by the two 13 and 26 plus minute tracks. Gosling has a twisted sense of humour which you can see for yourself if you look at his discography here, with the track and album titles especially. That 26 plus minute piece is called "6:17PM The Aunt Turns Into An Ant" after death of course, as we get this dramatic story line of her entering her new life in the ant colony. The closer "Klara Till Slutet(Main Title Theme) is a short instrumental that is Zappa all the way.

The opener is a short 1 1/2 minute atmospheric piece that gets quite powerful. Followed by "Cherish That Rubber Rodent" that hits the ground running with good contrasts and chunky bass. The next three tracks are my favourites. "The Mardi Gras Turned Ugly In Seconds", "Apple Witch" and "Morning Sentinel". "Apple Witch" especially was an immediate favourite, while this album as a whole was a grower for me. It's just different I suppose, but man this is an album I highly recommend. Probably closer to 4.5 stars. I'm not sure if he can top this.

1. Objects Outlive Us (23:19) (25/25) I. No Monkeys Paw. Beautiful way to open the track, really pretty, it's like Floyd mixed with a bit of Harmony Codex and Future Bites. Gentle piece, nice intro.

II. The Buddha of the Modern Age. Some of my favourite vocal work Steven Wilson has ever put to record, that includes everything he did in Porcupine Tree. Gregorian chant-esque, mixing Pink Floyd and the intro of Revealing Science of God by Yes.

III. Objects: Meanwhile. Pure Floydian-Steven Wilson. The guitar playing, the keyboard sounds (maybe lacking in organs and rhodes but regardless), the atmosphere, even the Harmonies (which PF could never replicate). The verse is catchy, the chorus mixed Hand. Cannot. Erase. qualities and Floyd-esque mood, a little bit of complexity, and cool yet subtle use of Saxophone.

Also, Andy Partridge (XTC) having lyrical credits here is really cool.

IV. The Cicerones Nice little guitar part, feels like something off Deadwing or even Hand. Cannot. Erase again. Mellotrons to give that old prog feel to go directly into...

V. Ark. A vocal focused bit, almost polyrhythmic. Love the lyrical flow, love how Steven executes this part. Gorgeous, production holds up really well too. A bit of heaviness, a bit of beautiful harmonies... what's not to love?

VI. Cosmic Sons of Toil. A little space rock / jazz fusion focused prog in this bit. Steven has a way of phrasing guitar parts, sorta Floyd-esque but... it's also like Fripp-esque too. You get this Floydian Jazz bit with the Fripp like weirdness. Great part, love the angular nature, love the keyboards here.

VII. No Ghost on the Moor. Reprising 'No Monkeys Paw' Lyrics and 90% musically, just add some slow drums. Really nice way to tie the epic together. Once again, strong ties to HCE, TFB and THC.

VIII. Heat Death of the Universe Reprises the opening with even more emphasis on the Floydian (DSOTM or The Wall-esque) Space Rock elements and production. Beautiful way to close off this epic. Very Floydian, really spacey, awesome guitar solo. This ends so ominously too, spacey string section, creepy, fitting for the mood of the album. If you like Pink Floyd, this is the closest you will get in the 21st Century. Period.

2. The Overview (18:48) (19.5/20) I. Perspective. Trippy, Electronic Rock, a little bit of the Dark Side of the Moon and Sky Moves Sideways elements. Really cool, but this is the only part of the album I find overstays it's welcome. Creative though! Reminds of stuff he also did on his previous solo album 'The Harmony Codex', a little more Tangerine Dream influence. As much as it's not my favourite moment on the album, how much does this differ from the opening of Time on DSOTM? Plus, it's part of the concept and has cool keys....

II. A Beautiful Infinity I. Beatles-esque with the Classic Wilson Floydian touch. Reminds me a little bit of Porcupine Tree's 'Stupid Dream', cool space-oriented lyrics, Floydian Guitar slides (obviously reminiscent to David Gilmore), strong songwriting.

III. Borrowed Atoms. The closest thing you'll get to Pink Floyd harmonies in the 21st century. Period. It's 'The Great Gig in the Sky' musically and 'Goodbye Blue Sky' vocally in the 21st Century. Very pretty.

IV. A Beautiful Infinity II. We return to the Beatles-esque feel of A Beautiful Infinity, really beautiful like I said. Strong hints of the Psychedelia that inspired SW so much. Definitely something worth reprising. Slightly rough transition, but you may end up getting used to it (it's just a tad abrupt).

V. Infinity Meassured in Moments. Mixing the Tangerine Dream qualities, spoken word, into a more prog drumgroove. It's also weird how I can compare this to Dukes Travels in ways. We get some more great vocal work, followed by a truly electric Adam Holzman solo. The sequencers, the guitars, the sounds and fx, the drums, everything. Absolutely incredible. One of my favourite moments Steven has written in his career.

VI. Permanence. Richard Wright-esque chords, Saxophone, the mood, the way the keys sound... I love every moment. A little bit of Floyd, Jean-Luc Ponty, and just mood music. Some of the most serenely gorgeous 3 minutes ever put on a Steven Wilson record.

Total: (44.5/45) = 98.89% Grade : A+ Favourite Track: Objects Outlive Us Favourite Section: Infinity Meassured in Moments.

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So! The Overview... This is the Pink Floyd record that Pink Floyd never made. This is Animals meets Wish You Were Here, mixed with a little Tangerine Dream, Yes, Crimson, and some Jazz elements to keep you entertained.

Listen, if you are going into this thinking this is gonna be "The Raven That Refused to Sing" or "Grace for Drowning" or even "Hand. Cannot. Erase" you'll be disappointed. This is Steven's attempt at a Space Rock album and he made it clear that's what this album will be. 'Objects Outlive Us' is taking more from Floyd directly, more comparable to something like "The Sky Moves Sideways", a little bit of the classic Yes/Crimson influenced prog in there too. While the Title Track took from Psychedelic Rock like The Beatles, the 70s Floyd sound, and emphasis on the Harmony Codex "Tangerine Dream" qualities as well.

This is both an attempt to make a modern Floyd record, and recapturing a ton of Steven Wilson's career all on one disc. At a concise 41:44, this album doesn't waste your time... it just delivers exactly what's intended. My only real critiques are that a small few of moments feel cut and pasted together, like there wasn't enough time to write a proper transition (most notably A Beautiful Infinity II into Infinity Meassured in Moments), and how long 'Perspective' drones for.

Absolutely astounding record. The closest I've come to giving an album a 10/10 review so far.

PA Rating: 5 stars - Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music.

This is also the first Steven Wilson solo album in a while I've gone into with good hopes. He has explicitly cited Tangerine Dream and Pink Floyd as influences he channeled here, as well as stating that the concept of The Overview is well-suited to progressive rock. (The concept behind this album is "the overview effect," where astronauts viewing the Earth from above often report overwhelming emotion and a strong connection with all of humanity.)

The first half of the album is the 23-minute, eight-part "Objects Outlive Us", which was co-written by Andy Partridge of XTC. Opening with some wispy, echoing falsetto vocals, things coalesce slowly, and the second part has a touch more urgency. Piano underpins a steady marching rhythm, and multilayered vocals add to the building tension. It grows louder and more oppressive before suddenly cutting out, seemingly evoking the growing weight of G-forces before arriving in a zero-gravity setting.

Pink Floyd is indeed a very obvious influence in this song, but it's all run through the filter of Wilson's songwriting style. Wilson has always drawn heavily from Floyd, and part three gives me strong echoes of Porcupine Tree circa the turn of the millennium. This phase then shifts into a heavier passage, and I really like the guitar tones here. The riffs are irregular and exciting.

Near the midpoint of "Objects Outlive Us", things quiet down, and piano and acoustic guitar again take the lead. As more textures enter, it lends the song a trancelike, hypnotic quality. Wilson again pulls off a powerful buildup before pulling back and letting blooping synth patterns push things along. There's a wiry, bluesy guitar solo that contrasts against the space-age retro-futurism of the backing in a really interesting way.

Heading into the final leg of this opus, Wilson revisits the subdued themes of this song's opening, underscoring the thesis laid out in this song's title: the persistence of things. A stretched-out guitar solo occupies most of this song's conclusion, gradually fading into an anxious swirl of effects.

The 18-minute, six-part title track comes next. Opening on radio static, it quickly shifts to bouncy electronica with outer-space words being narrated over top. Here are those Tangerine Dream influences he mentioned! This passage goes on for a bit longer than it needs to, but it's not too terribly dragged-out. The shifting textures beneath the narration do give this section some dynamism, and it does a good job at setting the tone. 

Part two starts as an acoustic song with a simple rhythm, and the Pink Floyd influences are again obvious, especially in the guitar flourishes. His vocal melodies are strong and catchy, and this is a good synthesis of his more pop-oriented writing with some of his prog influences. There is some nice twang here and there in the instrumental backing that I'm not sure I've ever heard from Wilson before. The mood is overall mellower and dreamier than on the prior epic. This piece takes its time a bit more, and that's a nice contrast between the two sides.

The opening narration reemerges, but this time the backing is more a blend of rock and electronic influences, rather than diverging into one or the other. After one last reprise of the preceding section's chorus, the song pushes into an ascendant, interstellar guitar solo.

There's an unexpected hard pivot to a rather sunny, bouncy section led by biting bass and punctuated by handclaps. Despite how different it is from the preceding passage, it fits in perfectly, and it serves as the backing for an exhilarating synthesizer solo. Delicate guitar and ukulele arpeggios evoke twinkling stars as things fade out.

"The Overview"'s final passage emerges from this void with gently wobbling electric piano and distant saxophone, calling to mind the emptiness of space. This resolution feels somewhat anticlimactic. Had, perhaps, this been shorter and flowed more immediately from the preceding passage, it may have worked better. But as it is, it simply lingers too long for my liking. That said, it's a fairly minor overall quibble.

It's nice to have Steven Wilson making music I like again. Where The Harmony Codex saw him bridging his electronic and rock influences, The Overview is where he has jumped fully back into prog. Who knows how long he'll stay there, but I'm enjoying it while I can. The two huge tracks here are both smart and striking, with distinct personalities. I've got minor gripes with each, but on the whole, this is quite the strong release.

Review originally published here: theeliteextremophile.com/2025/03/17/album-review-steven-wilson-the-overview/

"Objects Outlive Us: No Monkey's Paw" with a cappella falsetto vocals addressing the extraterrestrial, coming from limbo, captivating latency worthy of POPOL VUH, a cosmic air to put us in the space mood, with ENO and REICH in the background. "The Buddha of the Modern Age" with lyrics by Andy of XTC, a pop gem about the problem of screens. "Objects: Meanwhile" central theme: life and its deceptions, imploding black holes. A romantic-dramatic mid-tempo ballad with a strong bass variation, a feel of "The Sky Moves Sideways" and the psychedelic-prog-post-rock madness that rises like an endless wave with keyboards favoring memories on ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA. A nervous, invasive finale reminiscent of "The Harmony Codex". "The Cicerones/Ark" acoustic arpeggio with its organ jelly, musical time seeming to stop on this metronomic vocal mantra that swells, swells like in the good old days of HAWKWIND. The heavy prog sound of the future with hints of his previous works. "Cosmic Sons of Toil" introduces a synth from TANGERINE DREAM, an energetic, tormented guitar taking the place of the keyboard. Unstructured, hypnagogic sound, modern notes and the outline of the heavy metal finale. "No Ghost on the Moor/Heat Death of the Universe" has the soaring atmosphere of the 95s, "The Sky" again features Craig's signature drums on the phrasing vocals, Randy's guitar connecting with the previous track. A surprising guitar solo with a final sound reminiscent of a ship's noise.

"The Overview: Perspective" builds on the foundations of the last track, "The Harmony Codex," with Rotem's voice rattling off sequences of numbers, like the TALKING HEADS, with a rudimentary TANGERINE DREAM-esque soaring synth, an amplified atmospheric ambiance. A metronomic, repetitive, tinkering space lacking soul. "A Beautiful Infinity/Borrowed Atoms" has the slow melody of PINK FLOYD, like "Wish You Were Here," a languid, reverberating air reminiscent of disco in the distance, and closer "Stupid Dream," even "The Future Bites." Randy brings his touch with a tortured solo that restores order; Beatlesian overtones, piano arpeggios and distant beats, helicopter blades. The chorus's languid ending is predictable, lacking spark. "A Beautiful Infinity II/Infinity Measured in Moments" returns to the stratosphere with robotic female phrasing and BOWIE-esque funky rock keyboard drops. The atmospheric choir fills the ears, flooding with its fluid melody of OLFIELD, electro, and then another tortured guitar solo flirting with the keyboard. Crystalline arpeggios, musical water drops, and the muffled sound launch "Permanence" into a codice-like harmonic finale, sax in the distance, as in "Le grand Bleu." Adam's languid jazzy air invites us to float in space and see from above, a clear nod to the melodies of VANGELIS. Steve Wilson has projected his album with Miles Skarin-esque views, for an immersive audio on the phenomenon of the visual sensation of space. It is a return to progressive and expansive music, an opus for traveling in endless prog space. An excellent album for those who do not know his work, very good for those who like prog and good for those who know the work well, delivering here a tactical best of his discography. (3.5). (4.5 in atmospherics for musical pleasure, WILSON is avant-garde anyway.) Originally on Progcensor.

Opener 'Future Perfect World' is a gorgeous piece with its bombastic ten minutes of playtime, a more straightforward song exhibiting a strong retro symphonic rock sound. This is followed-up by 'Another Holy Grail', a longer compositions that aims to be more epic and quirkier, while the third track 'Down the Darkest Road' is somber and suspenseful and together with the next song 'In My Dying Days' offers variations in the minor keys as the album exhibits a somewhat uneventful songwriting so far, especially for what concerns the SB universe. At the same time, the interplay between the electric guitars and the violins provides for a moody and eclectic feel. Then comes 'The Seventh Sleeper', and as dramatic as this one is, it ultimately becomes a laborious listen given its extended length. On the other hand, 'Days We'll Remember' is more celebratory and upbeat as well as a re-recording of a Spock's Beard song from 2018's 'Noise Floor'. The closing track here, the band's closing statement, is perhaps the strongest composition off of this album, a synthesis of all preceding moods and quirks. The entire LP is very similar to all other P-SA albums and is perhaps too mellow and too moody for a flamboyant piece of contemporary prog, which does not mean it is lacking certain qualities, like being intricate or melodic.

9-minute opener 'Synaesthesia' is a charming, intricate and emotional piece that sets a dramatic and beautiful tone to the entire album as the listener encounters the brilliant and gradual build-up of tension, as opposed to the jarring culminations coming later on. 'Do Angels Sing Like Rain?' is another suspenseful and invigorating track, one of the most memorable on this album, followed by 'Untouchable Part 3', a beautiful addition to the previous entries appearing on 'Weather Systems' from 2012. 'Ghost in the Machine' is quite captivating, while 'Are You There' is a really atmospheric, with an almost post-rock-like development. The following two tracks are quite intricate art rock numbers with lots of electronic instruments, culminating in the title track, which is mysterious and unexpected, followed only by 'The Space Between Us', another fine entry on the album. The entire work flows naturally between post-rock build-ups and art rock soundscapes as the magnificent vocals of Daniel Cavanagh guide the listener through the realm of Weather Systems, a worthy successor to Anathema, with their near-perfect debut album.