Fear of a blank planet --- Porcupine Tree --- 2007 (Roadrunner)
Over the course of my admittedly limited exposure to this band, I've come to a conclusion that has probably been reached by many others who have heard their music, and that is that the one thing you can expect from Porcupine Tree is the unexpected. Their last album prior to this, “Deadwing”, had nine tracks and was just under an hour long. The one following this, 2010's “The incident”, has nineteen tracks and clocks in at an amazing seventy-five minutes. “Fear of a blank planet” contains only six tracks --- although one of them is over seventeen minutes long --- and just about hits the fifty-minute mark. But even then: a seventeen minute track could be like “Moonloop”, off “The sky moves sideways”, which is essentially 17 minutes of NASA chatter, weird sounds and ambient effects.
Directly associated with the Public Enemy album “Fear of a
black planet”, this album explores the themes of coming to terms with technology which is perhaps making people less communicative and is taking over their lives. You can see that now, as people walk along texting or in some cases playing games on their iphones, oblivious in the main to the world around them, and often placing their lives at risk as they step out onto a busy roadway while typing “lol” or somesuch nonsense. And the amount of us listening to ipods as we go about our daily commute, business, or even work, has easily increased by a factor of ten since Walkmans were consigned to history. As Fish once remarked, most of us now wear
“aural contraceptives, aborting pregnant conversation”. He was referring to Walkman tape players, but the idea is still valid, even moreso today.
Never one to shy from the hard choices in life, and music, Steven Wilson, the brains and creative force behind Porcupine Tree for over thirty years now, must be painfully aware that as he lambasts technology he is also one of its principal champions, using the very latest, state-of-the-art advances to make his music. So he's not advocating a return to simpler times; technology and life moves on, that's progress and without it we stagnate and die as a race. But he wants people to use technology in a positive way, to enrich and enhance their lives, not to stunt and restrict it. Man and machine, hand in hand (or hand in circuit), working together to better the human race. Don't tell Skynet!
It opens with the title track, itself a long enough track at just under seven and a half minutes, guitar driven with ominous chords and riding along at a good lick, and I'm not sure if Steven Wilson's using a vocoder or just some sort of other synthesised effect on his voice, but it makes it sound kind of mono, mechanical, alien. The stranglehold he sees technology having upon us is reflected as he sings, a latter-day Roger Waters
”TV, yeah it's always on/ The flicker of the screen /A movie actress screams /I'm basking in the sh1t flowing out of it”
Great keys from Richard Barbieri, with the whole thing pausing almost on the four minute mark for an extended instrumental section, synth and piano creating a disturbing wall of sound before Wilson's guitar rocks out, Gavin Harrison thumping out the drumbeat. A nice Marillion-style outro then before Wilson comes back in with the final vocal. He certainly has a handle on the “youth of today”, with lyrics like
”Don't try engaging me /The vaguest of shrugs/ The prescription drugs /You'll never find/ A person inside” and
”My friend says he wants to die/ He's in a band/ They sound like Pearl Jam/ The clothes are all black /The music is crap.”
As you might expect on an album with only a half-dozen songs, there are no actual short tracks on this, but for what it is, “My ashes” is the shortest, at five minutes and change. Acoustic guitar and gentle keys lead the song along, but it's really built on the passionate vocal of Steven Wilson, with some really expressive strings courtesy of the London Session Orchestra. Mandolin-style guitar also adds to the melody, but it's those strings that really start to take over the music, and I'd definitely call this a ballad. It takes us into the epic track, over seventeen minutes of it.
“Anesthetize” opens slowly and low-key, with more ominous keyboard and synth passages, slow, measured but somehow rolling percussion, the guitar getting a bit more intense and then an excellent solo from Rush's Alex Lifeson as the song enters its fifth minute. More references to the way people blank out and just stare at the TV or stab at a computer games console:
”The dust in my soul /Makes me feel the weight in my legs/ My head in the clouds and I'm zoning out/ I'm watching TV but I find it hard to stay conscious/ I'm totally bored but I can't switch off.”
The vocals have faded away now, giving rise to another powerful instrumental section, becoming something of a jam that lasts for about three minutes before Steven comes back in singing. Backed by a solid bass line from Colin Edwin, it's joined by the guitar and keys, drums getting heavier and the guitar then breaking out in an almost heavy metal style. A really epic, spooky keyboard solo breaks out at about the tenth minute, then everything slows right down again in the twelfth, with heavy, horn-like synth taking the melody towards its next configuration, as chiming guitar slides in, percussion rolls and drums kick in, the tempo slows and Wilson's vocal ends the song in a slow, balladic style with some emotive accompanying guitar and keys carrying the melody to conclusion.
Simple piano carries “Sentimental” until guitar comes in, the song uptempo but slow; I'd have to class it as another ballad, although it does speed up a little in the final minute, with some nice Spanish guitar and then ends as it began on the lonely piano line, this time accompanied by swirling synth fading out, and taking us into “Way out of here”, with soundscapes from Robert Fripp, guesting as one of Steven Wilson's heroes from King Crimson. A much harder, rockier song, it builds up a lot of tension over its duration, dropping to simple guitar about halfway through then exploding again into a heavy, powerful sound, ending on a long, extended synth line.
The album then ends on “Sleep together”, effects guitar and ominous piano backing up Wilson's introspective vocal which suddenly comes alive in the second minute with harder guitar and synth backing, possibly strings too: certainly sounds like it. A powerful ending, mostly instrumental, and the album is done. I find myself wondering was it good, was it bad? This is a problem I have with Porcupine Tree: some of their material I really like, some I just don't get. It's not quite as bad as Dream Theater but they do tend to use a lot of long instrumental passages that a lot of the time seem to me to just be filling in the tracks. There's nothing wrong with that of course, but it's really the lyrical content that concerns me, and though the title track and one or two others have great lyrics, I found it hard on this album to follow the actual theme.
I guess for me the jury is still out on PT: I have yet to listen to another of their full albums, this being the first I listened to that wasn't part of a playlist. Perhaps that's the problem, and something I need to address. It worked in a way with Spock's Beard, who I never could have seen myself getting into, and did eventually. Maybe repeated listens will reveal previously hidden depths to this album; I feel sure they will.
Oh yes, I have a feeling that my path and that of Steven Wilson and Co. will inevitably cross again, given time.
TRACKLISTING
1. Fear of a blank planet
2. My ashes
3. Anesthetize
4. Sentimental
5. Way out of here
6. Sleep together