Review Summary: Porcupine Tree's most schizophrenic, compelling and beautiful album, and the closest they've come to perfection yet.
While it's frustrating to see generic descriptions of Porcupine Tree's albums on Amazon touting that they're 'a mix of cheesy pop and classic prog!' it does become impossible to deny how much of an influence the diversity of the inspiration for their music has on their sound. Without wishing to sound like said generic reviews, FOABP sees Steven Wilson's prog-metal quintet hopping around from synthpop to very, very heavy metal, but they do it with so much finesse that their schizophrenia is easily forgiven by the end of this fifty minute chunk of near-perfection.
After that intro reaching almost Pitchfork levels of hyperbole, it's gonna be pretty tough for me to justify why this album is actually that good. The first few seconds of the title track and opener might well throw a listener expecting immediate greatness off guard; the album begins, in typical PT manner, with a sample to ease the listener in. It sounds cheap, it sounds lame, and it actually made me question why this album was held up as such an achievement before the music had even started. Once it does, it comes in the surprising form of a repeating acoustic guitar riff. The band enter one by one, and before you know it you've got Steven Wilson's strangely distinctive voice spouting some of his worst lyrics ever.
Yeah, that's kind of a problem with this album that holds it back from being PT's best. It's a quasi-concept album about the alienation of teens nowadays, and the lyrics essentially amount to Wilson doing his best 'I'll get you crazy kids' impression. But the strength of this album isn't in the lyrics, it's the crazy textures and experimentation with genres that PT throw around constantly, and that's what you're really there for. The opener doesn't disappoint; starting out as a fairly standard rocker, it transitions into some brilliant heavier moments, before calming down gloriously into a spacey outro. It's a punch to the gut of an opener, and it's got you eagerly anticipating the next rocker as track two starts.
And that's the opposite of what you get. My Ashes is a fairly retro sounding ballad, driven by a quiet and unassuming synth riff. Admittedly, it does get a tiny bit epic towards the end, but it's a low key counterpoint to the opener which immediately demonstrates to the listener the breadth of sounds PT are capable of achieving and, more impressively, how cohesive they can make them seem. After you've once again been lulled into a false sense of security, PT are ready to hit you with arguably their mot ambitious song, the towering Anesthetize. The 17 minute monster is basically three songs combined into one, with some good-to-great transitions holding them all together. Part one is a slower paced rock songs, featuring an interesting solo from Rush's Alex Lifeson, but Part two is where it all gets a little crazy.
This is the slightly heavier side of PT that has been lurking behind all of the prettiness up until now. The crushing, downtuned riffing once again punches you, this time right in the face, and this part of the song is so intense that it made for one of the best live songs I've ever heard. It's a seemingly unrelenting masterclass in writing metal riffs, and owes heavily to Wilson's confessed influence, Swedish death metal outfit Opeth. After the insanity has ended, the third and final part calms everything down nicely, and shows off yet another side of Wilson's mutli-faceted musical influences; this time, it's Beach Boys style vocal layering, used here for gorgeous effect.
After that kind of centerpiece, you'd think think that it would be impossible for the album not to lose steam as it went on. The next track, Sentimental, is there to dispel that notion, as the piano driven ballad features Wilson's finest vocal melody he's ever sung, in my opinion. The track doesn't quite live up to the monolithic standard Anesthetize sets, but it isn't the disappointment that, for instance, My Ashes would have been, if placed here in the track listing.
The final two songs, Way Out Of Here and Sleep Together, seem to operate as a one-two punch of a closer, with the former being the weakest track of the album. Way Out Of Here can't quite seem to decide whether it's the straightforward rock ballad the first half suggests, of the stop-start metal song that it intermittently switches to in the second. I'm sure that this split personality is exactly what Wilson was aiming for, but it just comes off as switching between the two far too quickly and sloppily for my tastes, and at seven minutes, it can become a bit of a slog on repeated listens. Luckily, album closer Sleep Together rights these wrongs, as it serves as an unnerving, epic finale to an unnerving, epic album. The strings in the climax spiral up and up, bringing the song to seemingly impossible heights, before it all crashes down into relative silence at the end. It's an inventive way to end the album, and it works wonders in that it leaves the listener eager for much, much more.
FOABP isn't quite PT's best album. That honour might be reserved for Lightbulb Sun, or maybe The Incident, maybe even Deadwing. But what it does have going for it, is the fact that when it's good, it is absolutely the best music PT have ever made, and judging by the retread that The Incident essentially was, it's equally interesting and worrying to pose the question that will be on everyone's lips by the explosive ending of Sleep Together, and once again by the end of The Incident; where can Porcupine Tree go from here?
