Since their emergence in the ‘90s,
Porcupine Tree has been a prog rock band that transcended the genre’s
conventions and clichés. The Incident,
their new two-CD set, suggests that Peter Gabriel’s Genesis provided them with
a road map—their moody chamber rock and interconnected song suites could have
descended from Selling England by the
Pound, even if they sound nothing like Genesis.
Porcupine’s guiding spirit, Steven Wilson,
seems inspired by prog rock’s original vision of a vast sonic canvas of
possibility, rather than the tight corner in which many prog bands painted
themselves. The Incident absorbs
echoes of new wave and post-punk, trip-hop production, even head-banging metal,
into a sound recognizably their own. And like the best early prog bands, there
is a sense of intelligence at work. The lyrics and the music seem to be onto
something beyond the everyday.
anonymous
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