'Fear of a Blank Planet' is a cool album. Although I feel they border on self-indulgence a tad too much. Good band as a whole, though. The songwriters have skill.

What's the best album to start with for these guys?

Get Deadwing. Or perhaps try Fear of a Blank Planet or In Absentia.

Can anyone tell me any Porcupine Tree songs as good as "Arriving Somewhere But Not Here"? This song blows my mind but I haven't found any other PT songs that come remotely close.

Or all of them:D

Fear of a Blank Planet is by far the best album they have come up with. It melds Porcupine Tree's prog with much more accessibility without losing the passion. Lyrically it is easily their best album. The album flows perfectly and is the perfect length. I don't see how anyone can hate it.

Also, Porcupine Tree does not recycle. They just don't try to completely change themselves every album. He isn't trying to be a creative genius. Wilson wants to keep the music as accessible as the Beatles, which is perfectly fine with me. I am not always in the mood for something that tries too hard to be original aka. what many prog bands do and succeed at.

Personally, I thought Steven Wilson's solo album was the most original and the best of any of the Porcupine Tree/Steven Wilson projects.

I thought his solo album was quite average to be honest. His I.E.M work is pretty good but Blackfield are boring as hell.

In Absentia is their best album. Fear of a Blank Planet is pretty easily accessible but lacks the depth of some of their other albums and is about fairly generic subject matter (Teenagers and their feelings/issues). My top three would go:
1) In Absentia
2) The Incident
3) Deadwing
Don't get me wrong I love fear of a blank planet I just don't think it is "The most important album of the decade" as it has been hailed by some on progarchives.com

I hated The Incident. It really didn't bring anything new to the table and Porcupine pulled out their nice song lengths so they lost some of their accessibility.

Also, FOTBP does not have fairly generic subject matter. The lyrics talk about young adult issues, but there is a lot more depth in them. I think what you said is wrong because one could say that Deathspell Omega, a black metal band that writes lyrics about Satan, is fairly generic in terms of its lyrics. However, they are far from the average black metal band and they go much deeper than the typical Satan worship.

FOTBP doesn't go extremely deep, but it certainly manages to balance accessibility and depth.

Absolutely 100% agree with that. It was the first PT album I brought and loved straight away. That being said though the first PT song I heard was 'Trains' so... it was easy for me to become addicted to them :P I love the haunting sound of 'Heartattack In A Lay By' one of my favourites easily.

I still need to give The Incident a few more goes because for some reason I just can't get into it. Maybe it's because I was so wrapped up in the other albums that i expected, I dunno... something more / slightly different? I have the same reaction to Steven Wilsons' Insurgentes album... don't know what it is but I can't seem to be bothered listening to it from start to finish like In Absentia or Deadwing. Later on I will give them both another spin, you never know, I may end up loving them. It's a funny world we live in. :laughing: