Polski opis

Gatunek :	Progressive Rock
Rok Wydania :	2005
Jakość :	MPC Q6
Okładki :	Tak

Opis:
Porcupine Tree jest dla mnie (z pewnością także dla wielu z was) zespołem bardzo ważnym. Nie napiszę nic odkrywczego jeśli stwierdzę, że jeżozwierze stanowią jedno z ciekawszych muzycznych zjawisk lat dziewięćdziesiątych ubiegłego wieku. Bardzo miło wspomina się czasy zauroczenia płytami „The Sky Moves Sideways”, niezapomnianą „Signify” czy też poruszającego koncertowego albumu „Coma Divine”.

Gdy w 2003 roku usłyszałem In Absentię – czar prysł. Mocno się wtedy na Stevenie i jego kompanii zawiodłem. Ale każdemu może zdarzyć się wpadka... Na najnowszy album jeżozwierzy czekałem z zaniepokojeniem, ale też nadzieją, że może Porcupine Tree jednak zawróci z obranej przez siebie muzycznej drogi. Singiel promocyjny - „Shallow” nie napawał optymizmem, z ocenami należało jednak wstrzymać się do momentu wysłuchania całej płyty, co wreszcie stało się...

Najpierw o minusach:

Nie przekonują mnie na Deadwnig przede wszystkim krótsze kompozycje: Shallow, Open Car i Halo. Mam wrażenie, że są to najzwyczajniejsze w świecie wypełniacze – brakuje im chyba nieco świeżości. Tego typu kawałki zdecydowanie lepiej wyszły Porcupine Tree na „Lightbulb Sun”. Nieco cieplejsze uczucia budzi spokojna ballada Lazarus. Nie pomogła „Deadwing” nawet obecność na tej płycie Adriana Belew i Mikaela Akerfeldta.

A teraz o plusach:

Lepiej wypadają dłuższe utwory. Atmosfera, za którą zawsze kochałem Porcupine Tree przetrwała w zdecydowanie najjaśniejszym punkcie „Deadwing” - dwunastominutowej kompozycji „Arriving Somewhere But Not Here ” oraz w niewiele jej ustępującemu kawałku „The Start Of Something Beautiful”. Dla tych dwóch utworów na pewno warto przynajmniej poznać najnowszą płytę Wilsona i spółki... Szkoda, że jest ich tak mało.

Wielokrotne wysłuchanie trwającego 60 minut „Deadwing” pozwoliło dojść do smutnego wniosku – z jeżozwierzami jest kiepsko. Nie wiem dokąd właściwie Steven Wilson prowadzi Porcupine Tree. Nie jest to już psychodeliczny czy też progresywny rock, który w Porcupine kochałem, nie pachnie to również ani metalem ani popem. Mam wrażenie, że Porcupine Tree zabrnęło w ślepą uliczkę.

Gdy słucham gdzieniegdzie zachwytów nad tą płytą czuje się jak bohater gombrowiczowskiej powieści Ferdydurke, na pamiętnej lekcji polskiego. Spędziłem z tym albumem sporo czasu, próbując się do niego przekonać. Nie skutkowało. Mogę więc tylko zapytać: „Jak zachwyca, skoro nie zachwyca?”. To jest taka „zwykła” płyta, którą wkrótce pokryje kurz. Tymczasem Porcupine Tree nagrywało już przecież krążki „niezwykłe”.

Jedyna nadzieja w tym, że może tylko mnie dopadło schorzenie polegające na tym, że narzekam na tą płytę. Być może wy polubicie „Deadwing”. Póki co wolę włączyć Siginify...

P.S. Może i za dużo w tej recenzji idealizowania przeszłości i narzekania na zmiany... W końcu niejeden już zespół zmieniał swą muzyczną drogę. Trzeba się chyba pogodzić z faktem, że Deadwing to po prostu inne, nowe Porcupine Tree. (Lorak, www.caladan.art.pl)

 English description

Genre :	Progressive Rock
Year :	2005
Quality :	MPC Q6
Covers :	Yes

Description:
So here we have it. After a long-ish wait Porcupine Tree have finally followed up their acclaimed 2003 effort, In Absentia...a beast of progressive rock and catchy rock that threw in some heaviness that was missing in previous excellent releases such as the pop-masterpiece Stupid Dream and spacey Lightbulb Sun. Porcupine Tree have long been a band with a consistency of quality, not to mention style. Their more recent, more commercial efforts still share a lot with their slightly more progressive past, but with more traditional structures and some truly enduring melodies. Despite the fact that Steven Wilson seems very partial to one style of music, that is poppy brit-rock with progressive flourishes, he has always been able to make it interesting thanks to a command of melody, and real skill at translating pathetic-ness and angst into something emotional. He has a powerful command of production and his vocals, though not that great, convey a certain range of feeling. They aren't really an adventurous band, nor an original one (one may argue they aren't even very interesting), but they are good at what they do...and this skill has been reflected throughout the band's discography, which consists of albums that are great for what they are.

So, how does Deadwing fit into things? People were thinking that the more metallic approach of In Absentia could develop into something more, something dark and heavy...those people were wrong. Or you may have thought that with Wilson's simple, poppy Blackfield side-project that Porcupine Tree might follow suite with some lovely, introspective and short pop songs...or maybe they would return to their psuedo-Floydian progressive past? Both also wrong. What we have got is a messy amalgamation of PT's older, spacier efforts, a healthy does of the commercial sensibilities of Stupid Dream or Lightbulb Sun, an unfortunate alt and nu-metal influence, every cliche in the Porcupine Tree song-book turned up a notch (this album suffers from SERIOUS self-plaguarism), and, curiously, some of the most bewildering awful lyrics I've ever encountered. All the elements are mashed together to produce the blandest, most boring and uninspired Porcupine Tree album...an unfortunate (non)'development' in a career that has borne quite a number of compelling songs.

Things start of promisingly, if a bit monotonously, with the title track 'Deadwing'. I must admit, I quite like this song, and it is easily my favourite on the album. However, that isn't really saying that much, and it has its fair share of flaws. It starts with some soft echoey sounds before bursting into a catchy, groovy riff and bassline that is repeated for most of the song. Luckily it is quite toe-tapping, though it begins to drag, what with the song being 9 minutes in length. The production is your typical Wilson fare, that is clear, compressed and tight, but the vocals sound a bit thin. Also, besides Wilson's actual singing (which is not bad, if slightly average), there is the awful shit that are the lyrics. How can you actually put the line: 'Like a cancer scare, in a dentist's chair' in a song and deliver it with a straight face? Unfortunately, the lyrics are godawful the entire way through the album. So with Deadwing we have a catchy opener that suffers from drag and a sense of deja-vu...wasn't this song on Up The Downstair or Signify already just much better in basically all aspects?

Next we have Shallow, which is easily much worse than the previous song. The main riff is basically nu-metal, and the chorus could be interchanged with any of the dross currently on television. Wilson whelps out angsty lyrics in a very whiny and disturbing way on this one. The entire thing reeks of desperation to get on radio. I know, Porcupine Tree have always been a commercially oriented band, but their songwriting has always pulled them through, helping them rise above the mundane stuff we get in the mainstream. Unfortunately that quality song-craft is virtually missing in the flat and lifeless Shallow.

Then we come to Lazarus. This song is almost unbearably bad, and the low-point of the album (unless that's Open Car!? It's hard to tell). Wilson is on total auto-pilot here, just churning out one of his patented depressed ballads but forgetting to include good music or lyrics. A fluctuating play-skool kiddie sounding piano accompanies Wilson as he emotes hopelessly terrible lyrics like 'So rest your head upon me, I have strength to carry you' and 'Follow me down to the river below, you know, moonlight is bleeding from out of your soul'. Wilson has written stuff like this before, but never to a song so bland as to make it fall completely flat. This pales in comparison to other PT songs like Stranger By The Minute, or The Rest Will Flow.

Halo picks up some of the elements of Deadwing by having a fat, groovy bassline. The song bumps along and is slightly catchy in a 'I've heard all this before from you WILSON!' kind of way, and yep, the lyrics are just as bad as before. However, it's an improvement from the two last stinkers. An average song and that's about it. Next is Arriving Somewhere But Not Here, which is apparently the early fan favourite (for those scaly-wags like myself that actually have the album at this point). Admittedly it is an alright song, but you've heard it all before. At 12 minutes it goes through the spectrum of PT's style, starting soft and echoey with Wilson's patented British nasal-whine, then rocking a little with a few solos and rock riffs before sputtering out. It's all very...ok. Predictable as all hell and with retarded lyrics, and on much the same level as Halo.

Mellotron Scratch is more of the same too, just a decent and bland little PT song, quite soft but also quite uninteresting. Nuff' said. That brings us to Open Car...good god, what was Wilson thinking!? His vocals jump along to a really, really bad nu-metal riff, sounding completely stupid. This song sucks, I don't know what else to say about it. 'Something broke inside my stomach, I let the pieces fall just where they fell, being with you is hell'...'Ok what's next, after the sex, what do we do now? Finding the time, drawing the line, and never crossing it' Shutup man! This is totally dumb, what happened to your song-writing Stephen?

The Start of Something Beautiful is clearly one of the better songs. After such a stretch of inadequacy that isn't too much of a challenge for it though. The song brings back a little bit of the 'zing' that Porcupine Tree had before. It has a nice atmosphere to it and thankfully some of the least shit lyrics on the album. Second fav of mine next to Deadwing. Finally, Glass Arm Shattering is one last bland number to finish things off. As far as the album goes it is probably the third best, actually feeling somewhat emotional and atmospheric in comparison to the forced, boring crap that came before it. These last two songs are still too little, too late.

I am really genuinely disappointed in Deadwing. Judging from their recent efforts I'm not sure where I would have pictured them going to after In Absentia, which at least saw a little bit of a progression in their sound with the addition of heavier riffs and songs. However, one thing I didn't think was going to happen was that they would regress back to mix up Signify with Lightbulb Sun, take away the good lyrics, much of the goodness of the melodies, and add touches of new-metal and really, really bad lyrics. This is the sound of a band treading water, or running on the spot...absolutely no progression whatsoever. I'm sorry but it just isn't good enough. Sometimes you can get away with copying yourself, but that's only IF (a big if) the material is STRONG! That is not the case here...with Deadwing Porcupine Tree simply rehash what they've already done, but seemingly on auto-pilot, with little regard paid to including compelling ideas. With little good new material on offer here, Deadwing dies before ever leaving the ground.

I'm expecting much more from you next time, guys.

Tim Blake (www.tartareandesire.com)