Porcupine Tree v. Glarung is a Lightbulb

[Buddyhunter1]

Let's settle this DTF-style

Trains
Collapse The Light Into Earth
Blackest Eyes
Heartattack In A Layby
Strip The Soul
Futile
.3
Prodigal
The Sound Of Muzak
Drown With Me
Orchidia
The Creator Has A Mastertape
Chloroform
Lips Of Ashes
Gravity Eyelids
Wedding Nails
Collapse

[HOF]

Prodigal is another one I like a lot. In retrospect, I wish I had sent it instead of The Sound of Muzak in TAC’s roulette.

[Kram]

Prodigal is another one I like a lot. In retrospect, I wish I had sent it instead of The Sound of Muzak in TAC’s roulette.

I've always really liked Prodigal as well - great song!

[Revenge319]

I haven't listened to the other In Absentia songs that didn't make it onto the album, but here's my ranking of the main album:

1. Heartattack in a Layby
2. Collapse the Light into Earth
3. Lips of Ashes
4. .3
5. Blackest Eyes
6. Prodigal
7. The Sound of Muzak
8. Trains
9. The Creator Has A Mastertape
10. Wedding Nails
11. Strip the Soul
12. Gravity Eyelids

[Zantera]

There was a time I used to really like it but I might just go as far to say Wedding Nails isn't just meh, it's fairly bad. Mostly because of it's length. There's no reason that song needs to be 6 ½ minutes because it has maybe 3 minutes worth of ideas and the main riffs aren't even that great IMO.

Drown With Me really should have been on there somewhere as I'd take it over any song that's not called Trains. I do think Chloroform is great as well but IA already suffers from being overly long as it is and adding Chloroform is another 8 minutes you need to shave off from somewhere else.

[faizoff]

Porcupine Tree's twitter account has been posting bits and pieces of art by the looks of it and they are releasing another single on the 8th of March for 'Of The New Day'.

[Tomislav95]

Controversial opinion time: IA is their worst album in Stupid Dream - Fear run.

[Zantera]

Controversial opinion time: IA is their worst album in Stupid Dream - Fear run.

I would agree. It's not bad, in fact it's a good starting point (Blackest Eyes+Trains) but in my opinion it's one of those albums that is great on the first few listens but never really rises above that. The other albums IMO offer more depth and after 10-15 listens you might pick up on something new. I also think IA suffers a bit from feeling more like a collection of songs rather than an album experience and that becomes more clear when you put it up next to Deadwing or Fear of a Blank Planet for example.

So yeah I don't think IA is a bad album by any means but it would be fairly low down on my PT rankings. Not worse than OTSOL or The Incident but maybe third from the bottom for me.

[Tomislav95]

I also think IA suffers a bit from feeling more like a collection of songs rather than an album experience

This.
It has some of my favorites but also a few I don't care about whereas other albums in that run are either full album experience or have all great songs.

[HOF]

Controversial opinion time: IA is their worst album in Stupid Dream - Fear run.

I don't think I'd agree with this (I don't really like Deadwing at all), but I would say that in my opinion Lightbulb Sun is the strongest album in this run.

[faizoff]

Controversial opinion time: IA is their worst album in Stupid Dream - Fear run.

For me it's Deadwing as well for the same reasons Zantera listed, then again I don't hate any of those albums. It's more of an 8/10 whereas the rest are a 9/10 and above.

[Tomislav95]

Yeah, definitely. It was more of a "this run is so strong that this otherwise great album is my least favorite" than "this album sucks" post.

[Max Kuehnau]

All the Gavin era albums only for me (including those early ones he added his drum parts in afterwards), I never listen to the others.

[Setlist Scotty]

All the Gavin era albums only for me (including those early ones he added his drum parts in afterwards), I never listen to the others.

You're missing out on some great stuff on the other albums Max! Why the refusal to listen to the non-Gavin albums?

[Max Kuehnau]

All the Gavin era albums only for me (including those early ones he added his drum parts in afterwards), I never listen to the others.

You're missing out on some great stuff on the other albums Max! Why the refusal to listen to the non-Gavin albums?

eh well, not really missing out strictly speaking, since I always loved all the songwriting on all the albums. Gavin era Tree is just so consistent in all aspects, and he is one of my heroes as a drummer too, always found him easier to listen to. Should have rephrased: Ever since he joined, I stopped listening to the ones before he joined. And of course, I suspect Closure/Continuation to be another really great one, in line with all of them starting from In Absentia.

[Buddyhunter1]

IA definitely does suffer from "feeling more like a collection of songs than an album" but the highs of that record are so high that it doesn't really matter. I'd rate it and Deadwing about the same because Deadwing is much more consistent and cohesive, but doesn't really have any "this is amazing" moments like IA does.

FOABP is both an even better album experience than Deadwing and has better songs, and that's why it's their best album.

[HOF]

Why does IA feel like a collection of songs? Isn’t it all more or less thematically about the psyche of a serial killer?

Also, I know Deadwing and Blank Planet are thematic/conceptual, but I never took Stupid Dream or Lightbulb Sun to be anything more than a collection of songs.

[Buddyhunter1]

Why does IA feel like a collection of songs? Isn’t it all more or less thematically about the psyche of a serial killer?

Only some of them (The Sound Of Muzak, anyone?), and it's less about the lyrical themes and more that the album jumps around stylistically a lot, and while the flow isn't bad it doesn't really feel like it has a solid direction for most of it. Blackest Eyes and Collapse The Light... are amazing openers and closers respectively, but the order of the rest of the album could be jumbled around a bunch of different ways without affecting things too much imo.

[HOF]

Why does IA feel like a collection of songs? Isn’t it all more or less thematically about the psyche of a serial killer?

Only some of them (The Sound Of Muzak, anyone?), and it's less about the lyrical themes and more that the album jumps around stylistically a lot, and while the flow isn't bad it doesn't really feel like it has a solid direction for most of it. Blackest Eyes and Collapse The Light... are amazing openers and closers respectively, but the order of the rest of the album could be jumbled around a bunch of different ways without affecting things too much imo.

Maybe the Muzak made him go crazy! I get what you’re saying though. It’s not all connected lyrically and doesn’t necessarily flow together musically.

[Revenge319]

I think excluding The Sound of Muzak and Heartattack in a Layby, you could probably connect every song on In Absentia to the serial killer theme. Here's the way I see it:

Blackest Eyes sets up who this person is; Trains is a flashback of the person's life back when he was innocent; then Lips of Ashes and Gravity Eyelids show him becoming evil. The name Wedding Nails could suggest that he's gotten married. Prodigal shows that there's an inner conflict in him, showing he still has humanity left in him, but .3 is the transition to him becoming a full-fledged serial killer. From there, The Creator Has A Mastertape and Strip the Soul shows the killer at his worst, and Collapse the Light Into Earth could be viewed as the killer having some hint of humanity and remorse for what he's done.
And regarding The Sound of Muzak, while I think it's pretty much irrelevant to the concept, I have seen some people theorize it's related to the serial killer concept based on the line "now the sound of music comes in silver pills".

[Kram]

Controversial opinion time: IA is their worst album in Stupid Dream - Fear run.

Definitely disagree here.

[Kram]

Controversial opinion time: IA is their worst album in Stupid Dream - Fear run.

I also think IA suffers a bit from feeling more like a collection of songs rather than an album experience

I can kind of see where you're going here - but I would counter it's a collection of mostly killer songs that makes it a great album IMO

[Crow]

if you want my controversial opinion, FOABP is a weaker album than any of the three before it
i can't really think of a standout song on FOABP. every song is pretty good but no song is as good as Last Chance to Evacuate, Russia on Ice, Trains, Gravity Eyelids, Heartattack in a Layby, Collapse the Light Into Earth, Arriving Somewhere, Mellotron Scratch, The Start of Something Beautiful etc. there's probably more
lightbulb sun and in absentia have pretty weak flow and a few duds but just hit the mark way more often, i'd rather listen to a mixed bag than a perfectly solid front-to-back album with no real standouts
and then deadwing has good flow and no real duds (shallow, halo, open car are like. weaker tracks but still pretty good idk) so it's far and away superior imo

[ReaperKK]

I agree. I always thought that fear was pretty weak album, I almost never listen to it. I listen to Nil Recurring far more.

[Tomislav95]

if you want my controversial opinion, FOABP is a weaker album than any of the three before it
i can't really think of a standout song on FOABP.

This just got personal
No wrong opinions, it's just one of my all time favorite albums with every song, beside Let's sleep together, being some of my all time favorites.

[KevShmev]

The 8-album run of The Sky Moves Sideways through The Incident is just tremendous.  One killer album after another, and I find it hard to rank them quite honestly.  Lightbulb Sun and Deadwing usually sit as my 1a and 1b, but the order of the rest will usually vary depending on my mood.  Just an amazing run of albums.

[Fritzinger]

Fear Of A Blank Planet is my favorite PT album. It's also a masterclass in progressive rock drumming. Combined with the accompanying Nil Recurring EP, it makes the ultimate PT album for me.

But I also came to LOVE Deadwing, with its consequent atmosphere and weirdly straight but incredibly played drum grooves. By now it's my second favorite PT album with only a small gap to Fear.

When it came out, I didn't really like The Incident (I remember taking my bicycle to the shopping mall at my home town to get it when it came out, back then I was 16), but like 10 years later I learned to appreciate it more and now I would even put it up against In Absentia.

[Zantera]

If we're only making it an 8 album run I'd argue Up the Downstair is stronger than The Incident and the run should start there.

[axeman90210]

I'd put In Absentia through FoaBP in their own tier, with Lightbulb Sun and Stupid Dream a tier below that, and The Incident another level down.

[KevShmev]

Up the Downstair is really good, but I don't quite rate it as high as the next eight studio albums.  I get that The Incident is a divisive album, but I binged it like crazy for a solid year after its release, and feel that it has held up pretty well, a few minor moments from the song cycle aside.

[Kram]

I'd put In Absentia through FoaBP in their own tier, with Lightbulb Sun and Stupid Dream a tier below that, and The Incident another level down.

I agree with this.

[Kram]

Up the Downstair is really good, but I don't quite rate it as high as the next eight studio albums.  I get that The Incident is a divisive album, but I binged it like crazy for a solid year after its release, and feel that it has held up pretty well, a few minor moments from the song cycle aside.

I think The Incident is very good as well.  Some killer songs on there.  They probably could of trimmed some fat off it and it would be even stronger.

[SoundscapeMN]

if you want my controversial opinion, FOABP is a weaker album than any of the three before it
i can't really think of a standout song on FOABP. every song is pretty good but no song is as good as Last Chance to Evacuate, Russia on Ice, Trains, Gravity Eyelids, Heartattack in a Layby, Collapse the Light Into Earth, Arriving Somewhere, Mellotron Scratch, The Start of Something Beautiful etc. there's probably more
lightbulb sun and in absentia have pretty weak flow and a few duds but just hit the mark way more often, i'd rather listen to a mixed bag than a perfectly solid front-to-back album with no real standouts
and then deadwing has good flow and no real duds (shallow, halo, open car are like. weaker tracks but still pretty good idk) so it's far and away superior imo

I agree with this take other than the part about "every song is pretty good." on FOABP.

I honestly don't find any of the songs are all that great. The music has a few moments (the crazy section in Anesthetize I'll grant it). But basically every song on FOABP to me the downer-tone and lyrics seem to usurp the interesting musical sections for the most part.

I don't think there's another record in their catalog that is guilty of that at all, which is why FOABP is probably my least listened to album by the band.

By contrast, Nil Recurring, the songs actually work and are not guilty of that.

[KevShmev]

Up the Downstair is really good, but I don't quite rate it as high as the next eight studio albums.  I get that The Incident is a divisive album, but I binged it like crazy for a solid year after its release, and feel that it has held up pretty well, a few minor moments from the song cycle aside.

I think The Incident is very good as well.  Some killer songs on there.  They probably could of trimmed some fat off it and it would be even stronger.

I haven't done a favorite PT songs list in a while (I should do that one next), but I Drive the Hearse and Bonnie the Cat would both were pretty high for me the last time I did one, and I am very high on Time Flies and The Incident (track 6) as well.  And the 10-minute sequence of Octane Twisted, The Seance and Circle of Manias is pretty incredible.  And of course I love Flicker.  So many great songs!

[Kram]

Up the Downstair is really good, but I don't quite rate it as high as the next eight studio albums.  I get that The Incident is a divisive album, but I binged it like crazy for a solid year after its release, and feel that it has held up pretty well, a few minor moments from the song cycle aside.

I think The Incident is very good as well.  Some killer songs on there.  They probably could of trimmed some fat off it and it would be even stronger.

I haven't done a favorite PT songs list in a while (I should do that one next), but I Drive the Hearse and Bonnie the Cat would both were pretty high for me the last time I did one, and I am very high on Time Flies and The Incident (track 6) as well.  And the 10-minute sequence of Octane Twisted, The Seance and Circle of Manias is pretty incredible.  And of course I love Flicker.  So many great songs!

I agree.  I like every one of those songs.  There's a ton of really good material on this album IMO.