Thursday, June 23, 2022

New (to me) Music - Porcupine Tree

Take the following groups/performers, and toss them in a rhetorical blender.

  • Pink Floyd
  • Styx
  • Journey
  • Led Zepplin 
  • Duncan Shiek
  • Yes
  • Chemical Brothers

What do you get?

Porcupine Tree  

I came across Porcupine Tree a while back due to their song Blackest Eyes from the In Absentia album.  I finally got around to listening to their complete discography.  So far, I've just been listening to their studio albums.

It is like walking in a musical wilderness where one moment you are looking at a bucolic pasture and the next you are watching a river crash down a mountainside in a raging set of mountain waterfalls.

One moment you are listening to an ethereal and melancholic tune with a singer lightly singing wistfully.  The next moment comes as the same song will transition into something with a thumping drum beat and guitar riffs that make you look around to see where all the metalheads came from.

The band has been around for over 20 years and it is probably the best band that you've never heard.

I heartily recommend listening to the albums Signify and In Absentia.

Steven Wilson formed Porcupine Tree and provide both instrumental and vocal leadership in their music.  He has been praised by musicians as varied as Alex Lifeson (Rush), Steve Howe (Yes), Robert Trujillo (Metallica), Jordan Rudess, Michael Portnoy (both of Dream Theater), and others.

Give them a listen.  Spotify - YouTube 

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