[simoon]

What a brilliant release from the man behind Porcupine Tree!

I have to tell you, I'm pretty lukewarm on Porcupine Tree. But I heard some interesting advanced word on this, then when I heard who was in his band, this moved to the top of my 'buy list'.

This is no 'borderline' prog release, like P-Tree. This is pure prog.

This sounds both classic and new at the same time.

The musicianship is phenomenal, the melodies are great, there's some dark atmospheric moments, and some all out instrumental passages. There ares some moments that are achingly beautiful. They even excavated King Crimson's legendary Mellotron MKII for all the Mellotron parts on the recording!

If you're into King Crimson, Van Der Graph Generator, (pre Trick of the Tail) Genesis, you should like this.



Produced by Alan Parsons and Steve Wilson.

Steve Wilson - Vocals, guitar, keys (mostly Mellotron)
Theo Travis - Flute, sax, clarinet (plays with: Gong, Soft Machine, Fripp, others)
Adam Holzman - piano, organ, minimoog (Keyboard Mag named him one of the top 10 players in the world. Played with: local LA prog-fusion band The Fents in the 80's,  Miles Davis)
Guthrie Govan - lead guitar (a phenomenal player)
Nick Beggs - bass, Chapman stick
Marco Minneman - drums

[lonewolfny42]

Samples....

Video...Track 6 - The Raven That Refused to Sing...

[kevin360]

What a brilliant release from the man behind Porcupine Tree!

Yep, this is his best work to date (which is saying something), in my opinion. The standout track (to me) is 'Watchmaker' - just beautiful. I agree with everything you said about it (but I do like Porcupine Tree quite a lot).

[Maritan]

Yes, fantastic release. I bought it on vinyl and I must say, it is just absolutely fantastic.

While Porcupine Tree has been crossing over to the more mainstream rock scene, Steve Wilson himself has gone back to his prog rock roots. Two right thumbs up:

[Russtafarian]

...and very well recorded, mixed and mastered.  I picked up the Blu-ray and now have a 24/96 stereo mix, a 24/96 stereo instrumental mix, and a 24/96 5.1 mix to enjoy from my music server.

Also got tickets to see the tour in L.A. in May.

[simoon]

Also got tickets to see the tour in L.A. in May.

That show at Club Nokia is on my agenda also.

Marco Minneman is unable to play the US leg of the tours, so Chad Wackerman is stepping in. Not too shabby of a replacement, I should say.

[Russtafarian]

Marco Minneman is unable to play the US leg of the tours, so Chad Wackerman is stepping in. Not too shabby of a replacement, I should say.

That's cool!  Chad's a local hero.  His dad has run the music program at Los Alamitos High for many years and has Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band play at the school's annual big band student showcase.

[J-Pak]

The Raven is one of my favorite albums from this year. I saw him on the Grace For Drowning tour. He was really fantastic live.

[Maritan]

Hey! I'm going to be driving in to LA for the concert too! Very cool.

It's going to be good to see this concert live. I can't wait.

[ptmconsulting]

I had to miss the NY show last year, after Grace For Drowning came out, but I'm absolutely going to this one. Yeah, Marco won't be playing but Chad is no slouch either.

Definitely in my top 5 albums for the year (so far).

[Maritan]

So, who ended up going to the show? What did you think of it?

I enjoyed the show a lot. Almost 2.5 hours of well-played music. That drummer was great - even though he isn't the guy that played on the album.