Steven Wilson - The Raven That Refused to Sing (and Other Stories) (2013)

Steve:

Porcupine Tree went on hiatus following their 2009 album The Incident, on which it seemed that the band were beginning to stagnate. Bandleader Steven Wilson immediately embarked on a solo career, producing albums that were every bit as ambitious and progressive as his former band, if not more so. His second solo album, Grace for Drowning (2011), had been a favorite of mine for that year, featuring a number of personal, intense songs with elaborate arrangements that reflected the strong influence of King Crimson. Small wonder, considering Wilson had spent the prior couple of years collaborating with Robert Fripp on new restorations/remixes of the classic King Crimson catalog. At this time in his life (in his early forties, like I was), Wilson possessed the Midas touch as both sound engineer and musician and had become the modern go-to guy for classic progressive rock.

The excitement level was therefore high when The Raven That Refused to Sing was released. Here was an album that appeared to be Wilson's attempt to give classic prog fans exactly what they wanted: six tracks ranging from 5 to 12 minutes apiece, each deliberately turning the "Prog!!" dials to 11 in a way that fans had not seen from Wilson since the earliest days of Porcupine Tree. The overriding concept is a collection of unrelated stories about doomed and/or haunted individuals. 

To further guarantee the album's lofty pedigree, Wilson brought in Alan Parsons to engineer the album, used Robert Fripp's own Mellotron, and enlisted Dave Stewart (of Hatfield & the North and National Health) to write some string arrangements.  

The blaringly obvious "Prog!!" premise caused a bit of backlash, raising an interesting philosophical question among prog fans. If a master craftsman intentionally produces a piece of art that checks off all the boxes for an ideal prog album (complexity, vintage instruments, superb sonics, musical drama), is it an original piece of art, a knock-off copy, or a cynically pandering pastiche? Opinions seemed to vary.

Personally, I think complaints about the lack of originality are both petty and overthought. By any valid standard, The Raven That Refused to Sing is a stunning musical work. Nothing here sounds like a copy of older works, even if it is often easy to play "spot the influence". And copy or not, the music is deep, expertly recorded and performed, and approachable. It even offers an easy entry point; arguably the most exciting part of the album is at the beginning, in the instrumental introduction to the 12-minute "Luminol", with its awesome lead bass (shades of Yes), energetic tempo, and keyboards, guitar, and drums all going full-throttle. "Luminol"'s main vocal section operates in a quieter realm before returning to some of the introductory themes to close it out.  

Of the remaining tracks, my favorite is "The Watchmaker", which fans were quick to point out begins very much like early Genesis with its calm but ominous acoustic intro (similar to "The Musical Box"). This track also goes over the 10-minute mark, giving it plenty of time to build its tale of the doomed protagonist plagued with guilt about his deceased wife. Once the loud guitar solo comes in, Wilson plays in the same finger-tapping style that Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett was known for. The track ends in an unsettling flurry of rhythm, instruments and voices. The third 10+ minute track, "The Holy Drinker", has some very hot fusion-inspired instrumental bits, with synth work sounding a bit like Chick Corea's Return to Forever. 

Two of the three shorter tracks hover in ballad territory ("Drive Home", "The Raven That Refused to Sing"), offering a bit of grounding in between the longer epics. "The Pin Drop" offers more extreme dynamics, like the longer pieces, but is structured more concisely at just 5 minutes long, sounding more like a late-period Porcupine Tree song.  

In what seems like an attempt to pull together everything Wilson loves about classic progressive rock, The Raven succeeds primarily as superb craftwork, with real feeling and real "sweat" in the playing. It was performed by his actual touring band, not just Wilson overdubbing himself, which he probably could have done had he wanted to. He continues to be a central figure in modern progressive rock, with true passion for the genre as well as an impressive arsenal of skills as a producer, guitarist, songwriter, and bandleader.

Dan:

It's hard to argue against the merits of an album as solid as The Raven That Refused to Sing. It's also hard to ignore the repertory feel of the material; in fact, it should be entertaining for progressive rock cognoscenti (prognoscenti?) to play "spot that influence" or "name that quotation." Jazz has a similar controversy amongst critics who sneer at returns to tradition versus those who appreciate sincere homages. Clearly, musical genres have to look forward and backward at the same time. Otherwise, new music would lose its connection to the past and listeners would lose their bearings. Albums honoring previous styles can also compensate for previous limitations in recording technology, which obviously is a tribute to Steven Wilson's production skills.

I'll briefly share the influences I spotted quickly on The Raven. 

• The Chris Squire bass lead on "Luminol." An easy one.
• After the boisterous 4 minutes of "Luminol" I hear Crosby, Stills & Nash backed by King Crimson!
• "The Holy Drinker" takes a page from the Mahavishnu Orchestra and features an organist who sounds like either Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman.

It's rare to find an album that serves as a tribute to an entire genre; most often tributes are to specific musicians or composers. In jazz, tributes to earlier styles often end up as disasters (like numerous feeble tributes to Dixieland), but tributes to luminaries such as Coltrane, Monk, Ellington, and Jelly Roll Morton can be exceptionally good. With The Raven, Wilson has not fallen into the trap of replicating prog's past. Rather, he's drawn from multiple prog resources to assemble a mosaic of original works that celebrate the maturity of the genre.

There is enough content on The Raven to dig into over many auditions, and I'm just getting started.

Porcupine Tree - The Sky Moves Sideways (1995)

Steve:

In the early 1990s, with the Internet in its infancy, large groups of fans of niche cultural phenomena suddenly found each other and were able to join together and communicate. Prior to that, magazines, radio and TV provided content for fandoms to bond over, but such outlets could only cover so much area. As a progressive rock fan without a computer at the time, I was amazed to learn of my friend Rob's discoveries of "newsgroups" (this was before web pages per se - just text) wherein progressive rock fans from all over the world shared their knowledge of long-forgotten bands. Concurrently, new bands emulating both the style and spirit of classic 1970s prog began to emerge, providing an alternative to the 80s prog-inclined bands who relied heavily on early synthesizer technology. It's funny how this movement happened around the same time that the pop landscape also moved away from synthesized pop and rock in favor of grungy guitars and good old punk attitude. Porcupine Tree came to my attention around this time as a new prog band that delivered the classic values I hungered for at the time.

I first heard Porcupine Tree on The Sky Moves Sideways, led by guitarist, vocalist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Steven Wilson. Although the band began as a fully solo project, by 1995 Wilson he had assembled a fairly stable band: Richard Barbieri (formerly of Japan) on keyboards, Colin Edwin on bass, and Chris Maitland on drums. Theo Travis, a woodwind player with an impressive resume (including full time membership in the current lineup of Soft Machine), makes key contributions as well. 

As has been remarked upon by other reviewers, The Sky Moves Sideways is structured much like Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here - as one long composition (the title track) split into two parts to open and close the album, with a few shorter songs in the middle. The overall mood is similar to WYWH, although there is definitely a harder, more modern edge to the music that ensures it will never be mistaken for a Floyd rip-off.

The first 18 minutes of the title track begin the album with a slowly drifting guitar theme leading into the first vocal section, which keeps the slow tempo but adds dark hues and tension. The piece then kicks into a faster percussive section with electronics that betray a more modern flavor. The piece continues through a couple of sections before giving way to "Dislocated Day", an edgy bit of electronic rock that reminds me of Nine Inch Nails in spots. Two more atmospheric songs ("The Moon Touches Your Shoulder" and the acoustic "Prepare Yourself") set the stage for the gradual resumption of "The Sky Moves Sideways". The conclusion doesn't so much reprise the first half as it picks up where it left off. As before, the spacious sound and respect for classic prog traditions make the album very enjoyable to my ears, particularly the free and spacey first minutes of the concluding piece.

Despite this auspicious introduction, I lost touch with Porcupine Tree's output shortly afterwards, as my musical interests shifted to other bands and styles. Strangely, after becoming involved with an online music discussion group ten years later, I became re-acquainted with Porcupine Tree and discovered the albums I had missed in the interim. In this discussion group (we called ourselves "The Trainwreck"), classic rock fans started a lively thread about Porcupine Tree, which seemed like everyone's new favorite band.  

Beginning in the early 2000s, Porcupine Tree's sound evolved into a more straightforward rock sound not unlike Rush - still very progressive, but heavier and more song-based, even incorporating heavy metal sounds at times. I enjoy this later era of that band as much as I do the earlier material - the band was tighter by this time, and Wilson's production skills were second to none. But none of it would have happened without the success and quality of albums like The Sky Moves Sideways. It's an early chapter in the work of a band (and bandleader) that came to virtually define the sound of progressive rock in the new millennium.

Steven Wilson, incidentally, is well known outside of Porcupine Tree not only for his successful solo career but also his remixes and restorations of classic progressive rock bands' catalogs. He did wonders on Jethro Tull's Aqualung and ELP's Tarkus, two albums reviewed earlier on our blog.

Dan:

Like all of the albums that are new to me this year, thanks to our blogging project, I have the advantage of judging them as they are now, without much sense of the trajectory they were part of when they were made. The Sky Moves Sideways impresses immediately with its long, thunderous chords that increase in intensity as the long pieces (Phases 1 and 2) progress. I love stuff like this and was not expecting it. Almost none of the rather spacey lyrics seem to matter much; it's the instrumentals that rule my attention. Steve's track-by-track description is much more detailed than I could provide. For me, it's the overall impact of the album, not its pieces.

I think the Pink Floyd comparison, which always seems to be raised in posts about this album, somewhat diminishes Steven Wilson's accomplishment. Sure, The Sky Moves Sideways has a similar structure and loud guitar passages, but Pink Floyd did not invent those things. I'd be happier just to celebrate the originality of Porcupine Tree.

If I were labeling prog subgenres (and I usually don't bother), I would easily find "space rock" to be an apt description of what Porcupine Tree do on this album.