| Track Listing Even Less |
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Porcupine Tree - Stupid Dream - a review by Ian Oakley
| Track Listing Even Less |
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Occasionally, as you surf around the net, you keep coming across references to a new album that seems to be attracting a lot of attention – Hailed as something "very new" in your favourite field of music. As your curiosity builds you know that the only way you are going to hear this album is to take the gamble and part with your hard-earned cash.
This is what happened to me with "Stupid Dream".
Also occasionally, on first listening to this new album, you think that yet again you have wasted money and have been a gullible victim of media hype. BUT – a very important "but"- there was "something" there that did click with you. So you return to it and play it again - and again - and again…
This is what happened to me with "Stupid Dream".
The album starts with the sound of an orchestra tuning up (don’t they all these days…), a sampled girls laughing voice and a "Pink Floyd" like slide guitar introduction which falls into a shattering riff that could have come straight off a "Radiohead" album. The first lilting vocal line hits you " A body is washed up on a Norfolk beach, He was a friend that I could not reach". Later, after a very grunge like section, the song fades and we drift out on a fluid guitar solo that dissolves into a sample taken from a short-wave radio transmission of "counting code" spy messages.
In that first track "Even less" Porcupine tree have presented us with their current C.V.
So is this album such an advancement within the Prog world field? – maybe so called "Indie-Prog"
Well, as the saying goes "There is nothing new under the sun"- Or nothing completely new. The production of the album has a very dream like quality with heavy, sometimes excessive, reverb and echo use - By the end of the album I though that the closing track should have really been titled " Stop floating"…… The somewhat fragile vocals, although "Indie" sounding, are still very reminiscent in style of Syd Barrett, Roy Harper and Robert Wyatt - Soft Machine ("Stop Swimming" reminds me so much of his version of "Shipbuilding"). The guitar work is very David Gilmour (Pink Floyd – "Obscured by Clouds"-"Meddle" era). Instrumentally bound tracks such as "Don’t Hate me" and "Tinto Brass", with their use of sax / flute and glissando guitar over a fixed bass pattern, strongly invoke the music heard in tents at free festivals during the 70s /early 80s. Music performed by bands such as Gong / Hawkwind/ Ozrics Tentacles / Chemical Alice and Here and Now.
Interestingly, in a recent interview, Steve Wilson (Leader Songwriter Guitarist) was extremely critical of so called Neo- Prog bands ( IQ/Marillion/Pallas etc) for harking back to the classic Prog days of Genesis, Yes, E.L.P etc - Being "regressive" rather than "progressive". Although, to a certain extent, I agree, but as I have said there is nothing new under the sun - Syd Barrett / Roy Harper / Soft Machine / Gong / Hawkwind/ Pink Floyds "Obscured by clouds" are themselves all products of the very early days of the original progressive rock movement, only perhaps not so well known.
However, let us not detract. The end 90s production, "ambient" sound samples, the use of grunge like guitar assaults, combined with past embryonic progressive styles, do give Porcupine Tree a fresh melodic sound.This is a very good album and yes, new and progressive in the true sense of the word
If you are looking for a commercial comparison try Radiohead – As Steve Wilson sings in "Pure Narcotic" – "You keep me listening to The Bends".
A recommended purchase to anyone who wants to try something a bit different – However, do give it a few listenings before you judge.
Stand out tracks :
Even Less
Don’t Hate me
Stop Swimming
Ian Oakley May 1999