Review Summary: Steve Wilson's most controversial album. An arduous balance between his past(s) and a declared tribute to the commercial triumph of polished Progressive Pop/Rock from the early Nineties.
The undisputed protagonist of last years’ Prog scene gets back shortly after his last release.
Wilson's solo career started in 2008 with the intimate Insurgentes: a deeply intriguing and personal record, revealing under a pale light an artist in search for other musical horizons.
Got rid of the constraints due as the main composer for Porcupine Tree, the following NSRGNTS remixes reaffirmed his will to explore new solutions.
With Grace for Drowning 3 years later, this pursuit led further away from what Wilson had done with his previous –now disbanded- group; a double LP where the devotion for ethereal and refined sounds was freely shaping themselves in a brilliant piece of art.
The always present reminiscences of the most memorable progressive rock from the ‘70 have then powerfully taken place with the successful The Raven that Refused to Sing. For this glorious masterpiece, Steven Wilson wisely chooses to benefit from the support of great musicians more than before. Confirming a solid leadership, the outcome was clamorous and carried his efforts out of the borders of “music for few” he always felt too narrow.
Publishing under Kscope, Wilson experienced an unprecedented cure for details and an improved, well deserved, promotion.
With the successive work, the forthcoming King of Prog(!) addresses his endeavor toward a different direction. Hand.Cannot. Erase. unveils an even higher expectation for recognition, trying to be more suitable for the casual listener by smoothing, slimming down the sound and, at the same time, elevating the role of lyrics to a cohesive whole for a modern Concept album; usually an arrival point for a songwriter.
Now the maximum title in the Prog League is assigned, could be the moment to take advantage of this spotlight and show what is all about.
Hold up by strong and reassuring confidence, Wilson consciously focuses on the popularization of his brand, leaving again aside purely artistic aspirations as well as his claims to stay away from liquid music and streaming services. He moved so to Caroline Records, counting on a powerful promotion for the things to come.
To the Bone was out on this year’s august anticipated by all sorts of stuff: singles, interviews, spoilers, teasers… A huge hype followed a relatively massive, Steve-centered, advertisement.
Reactions were various, especially in regards to the unsettling Permanating. Not new to some pop derivations or other influences, fans now had to face an ostentatious dance piece heavily debtor of ABBA and Electric Light Orchestra. The author spent himself defending these uproarious iconoclasts 3 minutes wiping the slate clean of the beloved thoughtful, refined art-rock. Yet critics weren’t often referred to the genre itself, but rather to the compositional smallness and eventually to the pointlessness of such a tawdry quirk.
The admitted purpose of To the Bone is to pass itself off as the sophisticated yet undemanding stuff the world needs today to replicate the golden age of '80/’90 Neo-Prog, when the innovations and vanguards of original masters have been blunted and made it accessible thanks to crystal clear sounds and flattened to plain conventional songs; a task that only a few people such as E.John or K.Bush managed with no fail.
However, it ain't simple not to notice how Hounds of Love, the Colour of Spring, Seeds of Love, were the genuine output of a long-gone age, both in time and context.
Instead, these 11 tracks proceed dithering among uncertain intents, attempting to appease different moods on their way to radios and stores.
The opening one lets it all start within the well-tested comfort zone of the most concrete Porcupine Tree songs from the Stupid Dream era, relying on a fully effective sound and strengthened by a sharp text of A.Partridge (XTC) about the alteration of truth nowadays. Same as Nowhere Now, disgracefully drained to a basic catchy chorus that couldn’t be more naïf. Both songs could have maybe had something more to say but left their potential unexpressed to possibly serve as an introduction to the Wilson revised conception of Pop-Prog.
Pariah, one the singles, is a romantic and maudlin ballad that could remind Don't Give Up from So by P.Gabriel, unfortunately, burdened by over complaining, self-pitying vocals that with N.Tayeb, never so mannered, reach the highest level of sycophancy bearable in whatsoever rock.
Impressively pragmatic production made of excellent arrangements and state of art sound mastering, as serious pop requires, makes it all enjoyable in spite of a dramatic lack of incisive or new ideas, which are commonly the core of great easy-listening hymns that TTB claims to be its target. The absence of contribution from a real band this time is evident and the self-referential creativity of Wilson feels dried up and drifting from the beginning, at least to the ears of those who know his talent and usual standards.
The Same Asylum As Before, with its Led Zeppelin guitar riff, is a biting song worth considering that only suffer from feeling already heard a billion times and adds nothing. A little too pander, Refuge is sustained by a remarkable central section and has the merit of dealing with a sensitive topic, we finally have something to hear supposedly because the author had something to tell.
The untenable Permanating burst in like forced, dopey laughter, then leaves embarrassed. Still the most remarkable episode.
In Blank Tapes Wilson is again lamenting on a lullaby, quite insignificant since has been left half done, just to give way to People Who Eat Darkness that grabs us before we doze off and revitalize the tide with some welcome Porcupine Tree rock directly out of Deadwing, sadly deprived of that detailed layering that could have enriched an otherwise very bold track about the spreading of hate among this globalized society.
Song of I, featuring a less tearful S.Hunger, finally puts on the CD some interesting passages timidly depicting a haunting atmosphere that won’t pass by leaving any trace, although short in originality. After this electro break, Detonation (dedicated to the tragic Orlando carnage) mixes one more time some early, inspired and spontaneous Porcupine Tree approach with sugarcoated but less compromised digressions of Wilson’s first solo albums plus some appreciated, nicely combined, funky-fusion interlude. It all ends with the melancholy, airy Song of the Unborn including a choir mindful of Hello Earth (K.Bush again), some of the best riffs in here and reconciling us with our favorite artist, maybe.
More than a light-hearted or disengaged mode, this convoluted way to make music that renounces to challenge the listener or take any risk, appears too frequently devoid of consistency and unnatural. A somehow emptied songwriting that often relegates the instruments in the back to concentrating on plasticky escamotages. Every parameter of Steven Wilson’s music is lowered down and pre-digested, swallowed in a while and soon forgotten, as well as his ambitions to gain a foothold in the Top his own brilliant way. TTB looks now and then obtained dismembering Wilson’s earlier creations and assembling them together; carefully but pitilessly scorned and whitewashed to sell off a watered, quite trivialized version of what was praised as some of the best things around.
As stated, this record is meant to penetrate the mainstream and open a chink in the dark. If so, we might question the merit of writing music upon what is, in fact, a market objective.
