So, a quick visit to Oxfam in Market Harborough yesterday, and I happened to stumble across this 2 CD album from 21st century progmeister, Porcupine Tree frontman and podcaster of the wonderful The Album Years, Steven Wilson.
I wasn't sure what to expect, but I've enjoyed what I've heard. title track and CD1 opener Grace For Drowning is a short piano and non-lyrical vocal intro to the album before the first longer piece Sectarian, a meandering guitar led piece drifting through quiet, pastoral phases, almost jazz noodling at times, side by side with harsher full band thrashes. Deform To Form A Star is much more gentle, Wilson's first song on the album, beautifully constructed, but No Part Of Me, which follows doesn't have the same impact, feeling a little bland, until the rockier end instrumental kicks in, and Pastcard is another of Wilson's gentler songs, enjoyable enough. Raider Prelude is a short moody interlude, leading into Remainder The Black Dog, a haunting song which doesn't quite have the grandeur to carry it nine minutes, but is nevertheless enjoyable.
CD2 kicks off with a gentle guitar lullaby, Belle De Jour, before a couple of shortish (by Wilson's standards) songs, the sinister but unremarkable Index and Track One. There follows a 23 minute epic, Raider II, and a prog epic it is, well worth its place alongside others - brooding chords and soundscapes, gentle song pieces, a flute section, ear splitting guitar led riffs, the album being brought to a less frantic conclusion by the relaxing Like Dust I Have Cleared From My Eye.
This is a really enjoyable album. I was concerned that 2CDs worth might be too much of a good thing, but there's enough variety to keep it fresh and interesting
4* - a great slice of 21st century prog
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