It’s been thirteen years since Porcupine Tree quietly went their separate ways in the wake of The Incident. In the interim, Steven Wilson has built an impressive solo career and band members have continued with their own endeavours, but Porcupine Tree has remained inert. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to see why Steven would want to shelve a project that had evolved from its roots as a vehicle for musical freedom into a Royal-Albert-Hall-Filling success story that came with its own baggage and, much more to the point, its own expectations. As Steven has stated in various interviews, the Porcupine Tree paradigm (especially post In Absentia, the album that arguably saw the band on the cusp of a success that would later consume them) became one of ethereal prog-based opening, soaring chorus, metallic interlude and spacey conclusion. OK, that is oversimplifying it a tad, but while Fear Of A Blank Planet is a remarkable album (and the pinnacle of that approach), it is hardly surprising that the ever-inventive Wilson would want to step back from becoming trapped in a never ending spiral of fan service.
Not that much has changed, it seems, in the Porcupine Tree world – at least initially. Opening number Harridan is an eight-minute exercise in well-worn Tree dynamics: jazz-infused and packed with stuttering synth lines, crystalline guitars and occasional explosions of metallic thunder. It’s a decent opener, if a slightly safe choice (particularly given Wilson’s interviews around Porcupine Tree’s dissolution), begging the question as to how much this is a case of clearing the decks (some of the songs date back a way), and giving the fans one last blast of what they so clearly want. Certainly, Of The New Day keeps things moving in a familiar style, as Steven straps on an acoustic for a track with a Time Flies vibe, although the track takes some interesting digressions, roving around a stunning melody that lodges itself in the mind long after the track itself has finished. In contrast, the jazzy time signatures and splenetic guitar of Rats Return up the ante somewhat and while it’s hardly a track without precedent – the Porcupine Tree catalogue is replete with such workouts – it is, nevertheless, a more angular song than its two predecessors, and it shows the band adopting a harder edge that is most welcome. The lengthy Dignity is up next, and it emerges at a leisurely pace from a haze of keyboards. A gentler track, while it does not entirely eschew the pyrotechnics found elsewhere, it takes its time to build, proving itself an impressive prog epic in the process. It’s set against the much darker musings of Herd Cullings, which relies much more on electronics for its ambience, coming across like The Orb going head-to-head with Nine Inch Nails. Of course, it’s still Porcupine Tree, and familiar to a degree but, unlike the opening pieces, the emphasis here is much more on continuation than closure, suggesting that there are indeed still backwaters for the band to explore, despite their not-insubstantial back catalogue.
Opening the second side, the trippy beat and airy synths of Walk The Plank cleave closer to Steven’s solo material (with a touch of Thom Yorke thrown in for good measure), than Porcupine Tree. It’s a strong track that, once again, shows that the band can engage its audience without having to stamp on the distortion pedal. The album’s longest song, Chimera’s Wreck, opens on a gorgeous guitar figure that seems to float in the ether before expanding into a progressive workout that ebbs and flows beautifully. In resisting the temptation to allow the piece fully off the leash, the band turn in a tight, tension-inducing performance that captures and holds the attention for the duration and the track emerges as a masterpiece that sits at the heart of the album. The cinematic Population Three continues to engage the audience, the awkward time signatures and Floydian keyboard textures serving to recall Syd Barrett’s darker moments on an instrumental that stretches to a leisurely seven-minutes without once losing its grip on the audience. In contrast, the stair-stepping guitar of Never Have allows, at least initially, for tighter blast of prog rock that sits well within Porcupine Tree’s long-established comfort zone, although it stops to dip into Atom Heart Mother-era Floyd along the way. It leaves the poignant Love In The Past Tense to see the album out, in a swirl of atmospheric keyboards and hazy leads, all of which builds towards a heady climax.
Returning after a hiatus, especially when you have a strong solo career in place, can be as much of a curse as a blessing, especially with a name as revered as Porcupine Tree’s had become. Within the ten tracks on offer, there is no sign of the tension that saw Wilson walk away from his long-time band citing a sense of disrespect from the other members, while sonically the album bridges the gap between the monumental Fear Of A Blank Planet and conceptual masterpiece The Incident which, even by PT standards, is a special work. As such, the tongue-in-cheek title is most apt. Some of the tracks do indeed feel like closure, but where the album excels is where it steps away from the established paradigm (on tracks like Chimera’s Wreck and Population Three), to explore a starker sound that points to some intriguing directions for the future.
Thus, while Closure / Continuation carries with it the inevitable weight of expectation, the band manage to overcome the challenge largely by ignoring it altogether. Rather, there is a feeling of remarkable musicians coming back together to play the music they enjoy, and this they do very well, subtly pushing the envelope from time to time, without straying too far from the band’s established blueprint. A hugely enjoyable outing, then, and a welcome return for the band, the album’s biggest success is to pave the way for new journeys, should they wish to continue. 9/10
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