GTAForums Music in Review

[Scarface187]

 

 

 

Artist: Porcupine Tree

Album: Fear of a Blank Planet

Release date: April 24th US./April 16th Europe

Genre: Progressive rock/metal/experimental

Label: Roadrunner

 

 

For those of you who haven't heard of the band Porcupine Tree I will give discribe them a little to you. In my opinion they are a mix between Pink Floyd, Damnation era Opeth (probably because Steven Wilson helped produce the album) and the rest I really couldn't describe to you. To me they are a really unique band with a unique sound and are really original and great. My first two encounters with this band were with the albums Deadwing and an album that was before that named In Absentia. In Absentia is a little more mellow while Deadwing I thought was in a more metal direction but still relatively melodic and mellow. They are one of those bands that do an excellent job of making every part of a song sounding fantastic. Everything is great on this album. The vocals, the guitars, the bass and the drums and the keyboards especially. There is something about the drumming in this band that I love. Sometimes they don't sound too complex but at the same time they always sound really good. Also I love some of the ambient sounds that come out of the keyboards. Kind of reminded me a tad bit of The Cure but the keyboards weren't as existant as they are with that band. When I heard this band was recording I was pretty excited. Even more excited to hear that Alex Lifeson of Rush would be a guest musician on it. While I'm not aware of which tracks he worked on, I know the guitars on the album are really great, as is everything on the album.

 

Time to review the tracks:

 

1. 'Fear of a Blank Planet' - Solid opener to the album. Starts with the sound of someone typing on a keyboard, followed by some sweet acoustic guitar, then followed by a nice steady rhythm. Steve Wilson's vocals then come in and are as great as they always are. While the track is rocking there is some keyboard there in the background thats a nice effect like with a lot of Porcupine Tree songs. A little more than half way through the song it gets quiet again and then slowly builds up and then the guitar solo comes. Then the songs becomes mellow again and the guitars and keyboard started to remind me of Pink Floyd's song 'Echoes'.

 

2. 'My Ashes' - A song that starts out with nice spacey sounding guitar and piano along with some acoustic guitar. Along 1:40 some strings come in which is nice. By this song I was already falling in love with all the effects and sounds on this album. Great song already, the string parts are just a bonus.

 

3. 'Anesthetize' - Another song that starts out with some great drumming with some distant ambient effects and some xylophone action. This song is the epic of the album. While two of these songs go past 9 minutes, this song stands tall at 17 minutes and 39 seconds. The drum beat on this song is fantastic. I also like the structure of it. It goes from being calm and then some buzzing effects come in and the song starts to ascend from 3 minutes. Then around 4 minutes the song gets heavier and starts sounding like something Opeth would make kind of. A really cool guitar solo comes in around 4:14.

 

I really liked it. This is one of my favorite guitar moments on the album. Then around 5:06 the mood of the track changes and with some awesome drumming and electronic sounds and keyboards floating around then at 6:26 the song explodes with some heavy rhythm guitar, then the drums change and keep up a really nice beat, with some keyboard still to be heard in the background but not as loudly. After the vocals come back for awhile the song starts building up again till the sh*t hits the fan at 11:18 with some heavy guitar and rapid double bass from the drums but then the song quickly gets back to its original pace then for the remainder of the song it gets calmer and calmer.

 

4. 'Sentimental' - After the epic that was 'Anestheize', the next song is much shorter, at a little over 5 minutes. More nice ambient sounds with some good clean lead guitar that you have to hear to get the full picture. Reading about it isn't the same obviously. At 2:45 the drums come in a bit louder than they were before without the song sounding heavier. The mood of this song is nice and calm the whole way through. This is another one of those songs that reminded me of listening to The Cure a little but there is more going on in these songs of course.

 

5. 'Way out of Here' - Another great song. Great solo, great everything. Pretty calm and mellow until 4:49 where the guitars get heavier and then drums get crazier around 5:20 with some more double bass action along with some pretty sick fills.

 

6. 'Sleep Together' - This is the albums closer. Not really a particularly out with a bang type of ending song, but its good as is the rest of the songs.

 

 

 

Final Thought:

 

This is a fantastic album, without a doubt. There is no doubt this is a great band, in my mind at least. Though in order to get the whole picture you're better off listening to the album yourself cause its hard to describe a bit of stuff that is going on during this album, but thats not a bad thing. Every sound on this album is fantastic. In the end, if you're a fan of bands like Rush, Dream Theater, Pink Floyd, The Mars Volta Opeth and even some of Ulver's electronic works, you will want to check this out without a doubt. However, if you aren't a fan of very mellow music and long songs (the shortest song is a little over 5 minutes) this isn't for you. Either way, this is a good album and I recommend it to anyone who is either a fan of this kind of music or someone who wants to try out something new.

 

I give this album 4 records.

 

[

 

And since I've been out of the review writing game for so long, for those of you who haven't seen, this is how my rating system works:

 

1 Record - I mourn the time I wasted listening to this album.

 

2 Records - Kind of lame. A few good things but nothing special.

 

3 Records - A good album. Really good in some parts but boring in others.

 

4 Records - A great album. Well worth buying. Solid from beginning to end.

 

5 Records - Must buy. An musicial orgasm.

Edited December 24, 2007 by Scarface187

[Xo4]

By what you have said.

 

I REALLY should check in to listening to these guys they sound great.

[Trows]

I love this album, a FANTASTIC release from Porcupine Tree, i'm glad they're stepping back away from the more metally direction - It wasn't for them.

 

Xo4: Get In Absentia if you want a good introduction to the band.

[No Escape?]

Indeed. You had me at Pink Floyd.

 

Not bad...I'll probably do one of these things whenever Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli go about releasing their Gutter Twins collaboration. Until then, I look forward to reading any further reviews people may submit.

[Scarface187]

As if I wasn't psyched about this album enough I just found out they're coming here in May as well. Oh my.

[lesfleanut]

Great job on the review man, I'm checking it out now. I don't know what they were trying to pull off on the first track, but it really doesn't sit well with me. The second track was pretty, and I enjoyed it. The third track, which I am 3 minutes into as I type this, is awesome. I really love this track, it's reminiscent of radiohead. I'll edit later with more tracks if I remember.

 

edit: Well I made it to the track after Anesthetize but that's as far as I made it, I've listened to Anesthetize in it's entirety at least 5 times tonight. I absolutely love this song.

Edited April 14, 2007 by lesfleanut

[Nemesi]

Good review.

I haven't listened it yet: they said me yesterday I could find the Cd+DvdA edition but then they said there're troubles with italian distribution... I want that edition, so I've not bought the normal edition....

It's months I'm waiting...

 

@Xo4: also Signify or Stupid Dream are really good albums to start with.