PORCUPINE TREE — Fear Of A Blank Planet (review)

PORCUPINE TREE — Fear Of A Blank Planet album cover

Album · 2007 · Metal Related

5/5 · 2022-06-26
siLLy puPPy

Following in the wake of the breakthrough album “In Absentia” and the following “Deadwing,” PORCUPINE TREE was riding high as the 21st century’s newest top dog prog rock band having honed their unique blend of psychedelic space rock with progressive alternative rock and metal. The band took full advantage of their new found success and engaged in massive touring as well as continuing to crank out new material with incremental leaps of sophistication. The next in line was the 2007 release FEAR OF A BLANK PLANET which parodied the well known Public Enemy album title “Fear of a Black Planet” only instead of gangstsa woes of racial problems in the USA, this concept album tackled the desensitizing nature of having our senses bombarded with stimuli in the 21st century. The album was a huge hit and critically acclaimed across the world.

PORCUPINE TREE pretty much upped its game on this release with a greater emphasis on the progressive rock aspects of their sound but the heavier metal parts were also nurtured in a similar fashion with drummer Gavin Harrison in particular displaying a much more technically infused sophistication than on his previous two albums with the band. Pretty much everything PORCUPINE TREE had achieved on “Deadwing” was ratcheted up a few more notches all the while without sacrificing the inner core of what the band was all about, namely instantly catchy and poignant melodies that transmogrify into myriad motifs and moods and highly complex composiitons. The album also added a string and orchestral backdrop as well as King Crimson’s Robert Fripp and Rush’s Alex Lifeson delivering some cameo appearances.

With only six tracks that are just shy of 51 minutes, FEAR OF A BLANK PLANET excels on variations of a themes. Strong melodic songwriting is teased out into sprawling psychedelic excursions with periodic metallic heft and electronic fueled modernity. In a way Steven Wilson delivers what i call mope prog as his middle range voice perfectly narrates the moody dark subject matter and keeps the musical procession fairly even keel and rather hypnotic with the beefy Tool-esque bass grooves and Radiohead styled detachment. The title track begins the album with an energetic guitar arpeggio but quickly showcases the layering effect of various guitar parts along with the bass and drumming variations. While it begins like a PORCUPINE TREE business as usual proposition, the track unleashes the fully power of Wilson’s fascination with metal music as well as the cool ethereal synthesizer sounds that also make the psychedelic space rock aspects stand out.

“My Ashes,” one of the few tracks not exclusively written by Wilson showcases Richard Barbeiri’s brilliant songwriting with a more melancholic tune that allows the piano and symphonic rock backing to provide some chill time before the monstrously long “Anesthetize” plays on for almost 18 minutes, making it the longest track since Wilson’s early psychedelic years on “The Sky Moves Sideways.” This track perfectly displays Harrison’s percussive overdrive with super tight drum rolls that churn out an incessant tribal rhythm while the echoed guitars and subtle sounds slowly ooze and erupt in and out of the musical procession. The track showcases an exquisite guitar presence of Robert Fripp and navigates many mood swings while it more or less nurtures a single bass groove that maintains a consistent hypnotic spell throughout the track’s run with only the moments of pure metal madness breaking the nonchalant flow.

“Sentimental” slows things down with the by then famous piano style of Richard Barbeiri that sort of takes the rhythmic swing of a polka song and adapts it to the keyboards. Accompanied by Wilson’s downer vocal style, the lyrics narrate the psychologically drama of today’s youth but the track shifts to a complementary musical motif that is somewhat contrary to the opening piano parts which is a trademark PORCUPINE TREE style of modulation shifts that this album has perfectly mastered as the band performs these musical gymnastics without missing a beat.

The album really doesn’t lose any traction as “Way Out Of Here” takes another turn to a completely different style of playing without derailing the overall mood of the album’s conceptual theme. While most albums drag down towards the end, FEAR OF A BLANK PLANET just remains engaging until the very end as the closing “Sleep Together” delivers an ominous electronic sounding gurgle as the song slowly ratchets up into a heavy symphonic rocker while maintaining the psychedelic electronica throughout its entirety with a satisfying climax of psychedelic codeine rock splendor. Yeah this album is sort of a downer but in a good way. The music sort of navigates your mood level through the bleak subject matter and walks that usual PORCUPINE TREE tightrope between monotonous psychedelic hypnotism and active progressive rock technical workouts.

FEAR OF A BLANK PLANET displayed a remarkable maturity over the slightly inferior “In Absentia” and found the band at the top of its game. It seemed though that this was the end of the road for this third phase of the band’s existence and the band was unable to match the magnitude of this album’s perfection on the following “The Incident.” This album found PORCUPINE TREE at its most calculated cleverness where the complexities were subdued in the subtleties of every cadence crafted or prosody presented. The mope rock scene had gone full fledged prog beyond anything Radiohead achieved on “OK Computer” or Grandaddy’s indie rock classic “The Sophtware Slump.” PORCUPINE TREE had slowly but surely made it to the top of the world of modern progressive rock and in its wake left three exquisite masterpieces in the first decade of the 21st century. While i prefer “Deadwing” to this one, i have to admit that this one is not far behind. Yet another triumphant achievement from Steven Wilson and friends. Although it took a few years for this to sink in completely, in the end i have succumbed to the magnanimous monstrosity that is FEAR OF A BLANK PLANET and it has easily become one of my favorite modern prog albums of all time.