For the last day and a half while MX was down and I was weeping, I found myself ultimately bored and with nothing to do. My extensive DVD collection kept me company and I went through at least 20+ hours of watching every
Friday The 13th and
Halloween movie ever. As I was watching young 'uns having sex and being butchered I had found a new philosophy for life. Life is like the Friday The 13th and Halloween series, heck not just life, but alot of things. There are the awesome and unforgettable moments (Halloween), the enjoyable and worthwhile experiences (Freddy Vs. Jason, Halloween 4, Jason Goes To Hell (I like it :upset: ) and the downright sh
itty (Friday The 13th: Final Showdown, Halloween H20).
How this applies to
In Absentia? Well, it has all the elements of a long and overdone horror series. There are the forgettable moments and the good ones too and the feeling of "this is just like the last one." There is also a Jason or Michael Myers in every situation too. There is always that someone who just fu
cks things up. Steven Wilson (the main man responsible for the music) sometimes takes the role of this type of character.
In Absentia is definitely the most accessible of their discography, but certainly not the best. The album has a bigger hard-rock and pop sound to it and is a distance away from the super-spacey albums of long ago. Though this combination fails to work a lot of the time. Take
Blackest Eyes for example. It starts off really dark and quiet and explodes into a catchy heavy riff. But it’s ruined when it suddenly just goes all poppy and light. The switch is so awkward and out of place. The song sounds great when you forget about the out of place riff, but when it reminds you before the bridge it just sounds like a crappy way of trying to make your sound heavier. It’s not a terrible song, but it could've been a lot better.
Wedding Nails also falls victim to this heavy/soft progressive mix. Except the song would've been bad if was just heavy or soft anyways. While the switch off between heavy and light isn't as bad as on
Blackest Eyes it’s just boring as hell. To sum it up, it's just 6 minutes of repetitive riffing. But another syndrome found in the songs is found so often it’s like the body count in your typical Jason movie. Too much BoringUnneededProgessiveDoodlesosis or in music critic speak, BUPD.
Lips Of Ashes is probably the song with the worst of the infection. It never goes anywhere and is so boring. I could just listen to wind chimes next to a beach if I wanted repetitive, boring, and ambient sounding noise. The only thing that keeps
Gravity Eyelids from being a really good song is too much da
mn boring, progressive moments. It's like watching Michael Myers trying to stab someone at an impossibly slow rate. It's boring and totally predictable that the "un-predictable" (usually the hero/heroin escapes from his evil clutches and in the songs case, a new heavy riff will emerge) will happen.
The songs mentioned are not the only examples of BUPD but are the worst cases of it. Some songs only have minor infections of BUPD, but nothing really boring. But, enough with the bad and in with the songs that made me glad. The ultimate example of what Steven Wilson and his band can achieve, if they're not trying too hard to be a progressive and rock/pop band at the same time, is
Trains. This song gives me the willies it’s so good. The transactions between the progressive, acoustic, and the rock moments is done perfectly. The careful use of effects in the background are definitely not overdone like on
The Creator Has A Mastertape and the solos are magnificent. Two more songs that stand out are
.3 and
The Sound Of Muzak.
The Sound Of Muzak suffers a bit from the transaction from the catchy rock verses to the sugary pop choruses but it doesn't really affect the song. And
.3 is what the more progressive oriented songs should sound like. Fresh, entertaining, and not too long.
Though many people don't really care to really recognize these flaws and will eat this up just like the doctor did to Jason’s heart in
Jason Goes To Hell due to the new craze in progressive rock thanks to The Mars Volta. This album is certainly not bad, but it’s not great either. It feels very inconsistent and is a tiring listen as a whole. Porcupine Tree is one of those bands who regularly write great songs, but not great albums (Deadwing was pretty solid though)
For those of you who have only heard early Porcupine Tree and are expecting some extremely dense and multi-layered music, you will find it a bit of a shock. Porcupines Tree's sound is revved up like a chainsaw and is lot more hard-rock influenced than ever before. I recommended this for anyone wanting a starting point for progressive music since it’s not that far a stretch from rock and pop and is very accessible.
So I've done real justice to another overrated album and here's the final word. ‘Twas an enjoyable album and you won't terribly regret picking it up. It has its ups and downs and its glory and its humility, but overall, its a fairly good effort that would be made even better on 2005's
Deadwing Like a horror movie, this album won't be loved by all audiences but could certainly be enjoyed by the majority of us.
