It\u2019s been 13 years since Porcupine Tree released a studio album (the excellent song cycle The Incident<\/i>) and 10 years since any release at all (the double-live Octane Twisted<\/i>); with the various members going on to play solo albums, tour with King Crimson, record with The Pineapple Thief, play as a studio musician or produce other bands, it seemed Porcupine Tree was a done deal. <\/p>\n
And then, after secret recording sessions, news of Closure\/Continuation <\/i>began to leak out, followed by the album arriving in summer 2022, with the band back together minus bassist Colin Edwin. A lot has changed since 2009, and yet Porcupine Tree has been able to pick up where they left off, with a set of seven (or 10, if you listen on Spotify) knotty prog-rock tunes that alternate between spacy and driving hard rock. <\/p>\n
For fans of the more rock side of the band, opener \u201cHarridan\u201d is excellent, with singer\/guitarist\/founder Steven Wilson sitting in on bass and opening with a great bassline before the full band kicks in. Not quite prog metal, but in the same spirit, and a welcome introduction. \u201cRats Return\u201d is just as good, a jagged rocker with overtures of late-period King Crimson (no doubt brought back by Gavin Harrison\u2019s time touring with the legendary band), shifting from the spacy unsettling verses to the angular punctuations of guitar in the wordless choruses. <\/p>\n
\u201cOf The New Day\u201d feels like more classic PT, a ballad that abruptly breaks open into cascading falls of guitar and Richard Barbieri\u2019s keyboards; \u201cDignity\u201d is similar in approach, and both songs are solid if unlikely to make the same impact as \u201cHarridan.\u201d Elsewhere, \u201cHerd Culling\u201d is a study in contrasts, spooky keyboards and jazzy drumming exploding in the chorus (with its repeated refrain of \u201cliar\u201d), and a false ending that frankly isn\u2019t warranted. <\/p>\n
\u201cWalk The Plank\u201d is a mishmash of sound effects and interesting ideas that don\u2019t cohere into a whole, while \u201cChimera\u2019s Wreck\u201d is a 10-minute affair that falls into the trap of being too long for its own good. The song takes a long time to actually get going, but around the four-minute mark the bassline comes to the fore and starts driving the song along with Harrison, over which Wilson sings his cheerful chorus (\u201cI\u2019m afraid to be happy and I \/ Couldn\u2019t care less if I was to die\u201d). A killer guitar solo sails in after around six minutes, then Harrison\u2019s beats get jittery and the band rides the main theme to the end. It\u2019s not quite the triumphant epic it could have been, but it\u2019s still a thoughtful and engrossing piece.<\/p>\n
As for the bonus tracks, \u201cPopulation Three\u201d is an unmemorable proggy instrumental but \u201cNever Have\u201d (more of a ballad) and \u201cLove in the Past Tense\u201d (a solid rocker that builds to a true climax). Together, they flesh out an album that\u2014like most prog rock\u2014may take a few listens to fully sink in, but your mileage will still vary based on your love of this band (or, say, Rush) and the genre in general. What makes the experience interesting is the tension of the album, no doubt informed by the real-life tension between the musicians and the separate recording of the various instruments. There are few moments on Closure\/Continuation <\/i>that feel settled or relaxed, which gives the album an anxious spark, yet it still doesn\u2019t reach the heights of the great PT albums of the 2005-2011 era. <\/p>\n
The title reflects Wilson\u2019s thoughts on the band in general; in an interview, he said he genuinely does not know if this album is the end of this band, or the start of a new chapter after a 13-year hiatus. If so, there are worse ways to end a band, but I can\u2019t help but think that once the tensions are resolved, PT may yet have another killer album in them. This falls short of that mark, but it\u2019s still solid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":34542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7098],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-46388","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-porcupine-tree","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46388"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}