Fear Of A Blank Planet - Porcupine Tree

I had never heard any Porcupine Tree before listening to this album, only knowing of Steve Wilson through his collaborations with Opeth and Katatonia, but 'Fear of a Blank Planet' sounded instantly familiar, with its folky, proggy, semi-acoustic guitars, atmospheric keyboard washes and liberal use of mellotron. Working from a prog rock base, 'Fear of a Blank Planet' is a very musically varied album, with pounding metal parts, dirgey lethargic sections, and sad, wide-open parts that remind of latter-day Anathema. Elsewhere there are claustrophobic, Nine Inch Nails style industrial parts as well as sections with piano, xylophone, and angsty vocals, which are ...  Read the complete review

"Fear of a Blank Planet" offers a harsh, bleak and disturbing insight into what Steven Wilson (front man of British prog rockers, Porcupine Tree) sees as our world's future. Six masterfully crafted tracks focus on the "youth of today" - is all hope lost or will they find fulfilment in life? Let me begin my review of the album with a comment on the musicianship. If you enjoy some complex (but not too showy) drumming, you MUST check out Gavin Harrison. He shines on this album. From start to finish he plays with real taste and perfect control. Some of the "fills" alone are spectacular - check out his interlude in track 1. The ...  Read the complete review

Porcupine Tree were introduced to me several years ago by a colleague after a chance remark that I had seen Saga, a group that hardly anyone had heard of. He had and said I should try PT and I thank him eternally for doing so. For those 'not in the know', PT is the brainchild of Steven Wilson and are what would be called Progressive Rock, in the mould of, say, Pink Floyd (perhaps) but they are very hard to define as their music changes from album to album. I saw PT live just before the release of FOABF, where they played the whole of the album from start to finish. When Steve announced that they were about to play an 18 minute track (Anesthetize), ...  Read the complete review

Fear Of A Blank Planet is the first Porcupine Tree album for some time and it is immediately obvious where a lot of Steven Wilson's time has been spent in the meantime. Having produced albums for Opeth and spent some time on tour with them, their prog metal sensibilities have clearly leeched into Wilson's writing. This is no bad thing, of course, and it is part of the appeal of Porcupine Tree that their music is constantly changing and evolving. Wilson himself admits that his songs tend to be very simple and that it is the arrangements that are complex. This is particularly apparent in the epic Anesthetize which constantly changes and surprises. This same ...  Read the complete review

With the release of the new Fear of a Blank Planet record, the band try to separate the boys from the men with a much darker and naturally more appealing concept piece which focuses on modem day life, and the wide spread availability of drugs, pornography, guns and technological entertainment. The European release of both the standard and special edition issue of the album coincided with the debut of the controversial Lasse Hoile directed music video, which further hinted at the albums dark nature, a department in which Deadwing was certainly found wanting. And it's the title track, Fear of a Blank Planet which gets the album off to an exciting and ...  Read the complete review