Raising Spirits From Incidents Of Life And Death

Last week, progressive rock band Porcupine Tree released their tenth studio album. At over 75 minutes, The Incident is the band’s longest since 1991’s On The Sunday Of Life. It could be called a concept album, though it’s more like a collection of short stories with a common theme, as opposed to a novel with a singular story arc.

That’s not to say that The Incident is anything less than a concise work of art; While the lyrics jump from setting to setting and character to character, the music flows steadily, carrying the listener through with a calculated pace, and not a single jarring interruption. Interludes provide bridges between stories, and they never feel gratuitous or over-indulgent, which is quite an achievement for such a grandiose composition.

This characteristic forces listeners and critics alike to digest The Incident as one unified body rather than a collection of songs. And it’s taken us weeks to do so. We must admit that we’re only casually acquainted with pieces of the band’s extensive past body of work. So while we can say that The Incident is not quite as dark and haunting musically as Fear Of A Blank Planet or In Absentia despite the subject matter (which we’ll get to in a second), we’re coming to The Incident as new fans of the band for the most part.

The first story we come to is The Blind House, referencing a house in Texas where one of the album’s non-fictitious ‘incidents’ occurred. Teenage girls, victims of physical and sexual abuse, were evacuated from the ranch of the Yearning For Zion cult in Schleicher County. Between barrages of a gatecrashing doom-rock riff, Steven Wilson laments: Pray and violate / Abuse your trust / False Gods must purge their lust / A family that lies to seal your fate / To take the weight of their self-hate…

Two brief passages follow, the wailing Great Expectations, and a quiet interlude entitled Kneel And Disconnect that chronicles the mini-incident of Wilson’s decision to quit his day job and pursue a career in music.

Before the titular incident and primary inspiration for the entire album is introduced, Drawing The Line brings one of the album’s most positive peaks, with a triumphant chorus: I’m drawing the line, I draw the line… And I have my pride… / I’m taking control… And I save my soul… / I’m shutting you out… And I have no doubt…

Driving home from the studio one night after during the album’s early recording sessions, Steven Wilson passed the scene of a brutal car accident, that was marked with a cold and ominous sign that read ‘POLICE / INCIDENT.’ Wilson was struck with the detached, ambiguous nature of the simple word ‘incident’ being used to describe “seismic” events that would change lives forever. Now, I’m reading between the lines here, but it’s easy to follow Wilson’s thought process: To passers-by, it was ‘an incident,’ but if you look past the sign and the caution tape and acknowledge the true gravity of the situation, you realize that just by witnessing an event so definitive for the parties directly involved, you become a part of it. Wilson was overcome with the sensation that the spirits of the victims were so close at that particular moment, that he might look into the rearview and see them sitting in the passenger seat.

Now I’m not sure where Wilson took the inspiration for lyrics suggesting that the car crash was a sexual release for an involved party- Maybe in interviews, he’s leaving out part of the scene he witnessed, or perhaps he’s blending in parts of another story, or just letting his subconscious flow freely. Regardless, it’s one of the darkest pieces on the album, despite a sort of clearing towards the end when the distortion gives way to the refrain, I want to be loved.

The album’s incidents are not limited to instantaneous, tragic events. As with the aforementioned Kneel And Disconnect, the broader theme includes the handful of turning points that one encounters in life, whether it’s a relationship or struggle that spans months or years, or an event that adds or removes a significant element. Personally, I find this grander vision a testament to the band’s maturity; It would be easy for a progressive rock band to rely completely on a palette of macabre stories from the news to keep things dark and spooky. But Porcupine Tree make it real, and thus more effective, by adding perspectives that even those of us who have never experienced a tragedy can relate to.

With Time Flies, mortality is confronted by someone facing nothing more or less momentous than the quiet realization that it’s all just a matter of time. That his days are limited, and there’s nothing he can do to stop or slow the hourglass. The song is relatively upbeat, with a positive message (And the best thing that you can do / Is take whatever comes to you), but in some ways it’s the most haunting track on the album, because it’s the most realistic. We all die. We all share one final incident.

Octane Twisted and The Seance together provide a sort of postscript to the tragedies, seeking answers and closure, repeating the words: We go following sorrow / To feel your blood spilling out of the reeds there / Give me a sign I can breathe air / Blood flowing out of the stream there / (Give me something new please, something I can love)…

The aptly titled Circle Of Manias careens down a spiraling instrumental ride into the netherworld, revisiting the distorted anguish of the title track.

I Drive The Hearse immediately follows, providing the album’s starkest contrast. Its chorus is reminiscent of classic folk rock, which at times was unearthly in its own way. The bridge solo over a climbing chord progression is one of the album’s most memorable. Initially, not listening to the lyrics intently, I took it as giving the coroner the last word. However, I think Wilson is really talking about a relationship here, once again. Silence is another way / Of saying what I wanna say / And lying is another way / Of hoping it will go away / And you were always my mistake…

These fourteen tracks that comprise disc one are all organized under the title The Incident, and are thematically intertwined. The second disc is four separate tracks that total about twenty minutes. While they complement The Incident sonically, and don’t feel out of place, had they been released as a self-contained EP, it would have been considered at least one of the band’s best, particularly on the strength of the slow burning cuts Black Dahlia and Remember Me Lover.

Bonnie The Cat, a working title inspired by the studio cat that the band came to find appropriate for the finished track, takes us on final ride ride through the twisted halloween funhouse we saw in The Incident and Circle Of Manias.

Black Dahlia follows in the footsteps of Pink Floyd, with reverberating, understated poetry sung over wistful, distant textures provided by Richard Barbieri’s keys. Wilson sings, Never seem to get away from this / It’s all falling into an abyss / So put your foot on the pedal boy, and I couldn’t help but think of Roger Waters addressing the subject of his songs as boy on occasion. Meanwhile, the music at times sounds like something out of a Bernard Herrmann film score, and ultimately the end result is an indelible, anachronistic theme song.

Remember Me Lover is the final passage of the grand opus, and one of my personal favorites. This one makes no bones about being inspired by a relationship, and it must not have ended well. Progressive rock bands are known for writing about fantastic battles between elves and orcs, or space pirates and aliens, but while Porcupine Tree has always been an exception to that stereotype, the clash between chronicled in Remember Me Lover is no less savage or gory than the genre’s standard fare.

It’s hard to tell which perspective the song is sung from; perhaps it alternates between both. Its first verse is like being hit with a ton of feathers; over barely audible, subtle guitar notes, Steven Wilson opens his letter: I didn’t want to feel like a slave to your mood swings / And I’m not saying anything I wouldn’t say behind your back / And all this shit could have happened to anyone / All that matters now is how you gonna pick it up to throw it back… It’s so hard to get along / I always know what you’re gonna say / This too: I hated you / I wish you’d learn to keep your mouth shut… Then, over a vocal harmony, the full band comes in with crunching guitars trading off with beautiful piano over a driving beat.

As aggressive as the chorus is, it’s the quiet parts that sting, with lines like I’ve been through this with you about a hundred times / Agree to disagree, start again, with our lives / Then every single morning I wake up and you’re still there / But tomorrow you will be alone and that is all you deserve…

Progressive rock can be an acquired taste, but this album is sure to be respected by even the most casual fans of the genre, and I hear Porcupine Tree fans are calling it their best album to date- which is quite a statement. In a time when the album format itself is struggling to stay relevant under a deluge of maladroit, filler-laden, dialed-in products, The Incident is a real adventure. And you won’t find yourself skipping through to get to the good stuff, as it delivers consistently throughout the long journey.

In addition to the standard CD version, the album is available as a double vinyl LP, as well as a special edition limited to 2,000 copies, including a 48 page companion book and a PVC slipcase. More info here.