Could be good. Less excited for his current work these days and more excited about simply seeing him live again (his live shows are pretty great).

So this is not even going to be prog rock by the sounds of this track. Not very interested atm with that.

I love everything this guy releases. I can't wait!

Some catchy pop rock released from this album thus far. Good for background music, but not what I'd want from someone as capable as Wilson at all.

First voter

This is a really good album. Yes it's poppy and not very proggy....... So fucking what?

Wilson is on a fucking milk run ....

It's his Falling Into Infinity, for better or worse.
Surely, after so many stands against disposable music, easy listening and the posing of various mainstream wonders, to overexpose this way now and release such a pander album, it's at least controversial for his intellectual honesty.
The often mentioned comparison with Stupid Dream is a stab to the heart of Porcupine Tree: that was a prog album inspired, sincere and spontaneous, with echoes of Beatles and psychedelic rock. While TTB is mostly a revised and actualized eighties synth pop, entirely assembled and chiseled to maximize the commercial potential of SW by emasculating the contents, trivializing the experimental vein and mortifying the artistic ambitions of Insurgentes and GfD.
The Prog-Pop we've heard of is not an oxymoron or a velleity, you can tell by the works of the Dear Hunter, Dredg or Knifeworld; and the shift of genre could only upset some irreducible ol' MetlaHead, given that even Katatonia, Ulver ecc. have operated mainly approved radical mutations themselves. Nobody in fact is arguing about the incoherence of Wilson, except for his previous statements, rather than a general debasement of what it was legit to expect. Just like Opeth, what detractors feel missing compared to the earlier stuff, is the layering and richness of a team job; a dry up of the songwriting in favor of a mannerist planning of the style that will lead each track.
Refined pop as well exists of course and, especially in the latter past, Elton John, Bowie or Bjork have shown to maintain an integrity and continuity even when aiming to a massive audience. On the other side, bands like Pink Floyd in the past or Radiohead today are -still- achieving huge results while keeping intact their own idea of music, occupying the narrow space nowadays saved on the surface of business for all that is not pure marketing stuff.
Regarding what can be considered Contemporary Prog, Wilson having spent some time in Kscope, knows well that is plenty of great releases around, Gazpacho, Thank You Scientist, Agent Fresco and many other.
Have been truly supporting SW since Signify, still it takes the courage to admit, without being snob, that this album marks a self-reported creative drift, depressing and sometime embarrassing, no matter all several rave justifications brought to us.
Possibly, beyond personal tastes, the Raven represents his professional apogee, whereas balance is found among compositional rushes, an undeniable class, and the ability to rationalize the overflowing instrumental qualities of the involved musicians, making it all accessible and widely enjoyable on different levels.
H.C.E. was already diluting the musical attitude of Wilson, revealing the tendency toward sounds way more polished and catchy than usual, matched with a pretentious concept beneath.
TTB could be a bunch of redrawn outtakes, it alternates indefensible over tidy refrains, good for the next Eurovision Festival, with sickly, sometime whining, re-chewed elements of Wilson repertoire; all in order to obtain an effect of immediacy, sadly without the quality of truly great pop songs. Giving up to any originality, the output is a denial of a career spent evolving and researching for new solutions. It all ends up to be his most harmless LP, a narcissistic attempt to monetize years gone building a success within a niche, by moving to a major label ensuring himself a powerful promotion.

https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/74670/Steven-Wilson-To-the-Bone/

Pariah is a good song. The rest of the album is the perfect cure for Insomnia

I've listened to the album four times now and absolutely love it. Grows on me a bit more each time. I know the word poppy is getting thrown around a lot with this release, but I think it transcends that. I also think Detonation is one of the best tracks Wilson has ever released.

Think Refuge is probably my favourite song on the album - also probably the most proggy apart from Detonation. Overall I like it to a similar-ish level to HCE, which I can certainly appreciate but which never fully connected with me in the way Porcupine Tree's best or The Raven... did

Still haven't listened to the full album but people are calling it "poppy". Wasn't Steven Wilson and Porcupine Tree always "poppy"? They were to me at least.

Excellent album, really love it.

Solid fucking album! Gimme dat 'pop'!

As a more "poppy" album, this really showcases how weak Wilson's vocals are. Would be a much better band if he had real singer

Written by BloodTears on 24.08.2017 at 12:34

Still haven't listened to the full album but people are calling it "poppy". Wasn't Steven Wilson and Porcupine Tree always "poppy"? They were to me at least.

I've been taking potshots at people all over the internet who lament the poppy new direction that Steven just magically found for this album. It's like... have you ever heard, well, anything he's done?

Written by Liquid on 30.08.2017 at 04:39

I've been taking potshots at people all over the internet who lament the poppy new direction that Steven just magically found for this album. It's like... have you ever heard, well, anything he's done?

I know right? I'm baffled lol I've heard the album in full once now and it doesn't sound that much more "poppy" than before. You have some curve balls in there, musically speaking, but Steven always did that.

Poppy or not , it's probably his least impressive solo album.

This latest venture is a big meh to be honest, not as interesting as Insurgentes, not as ambitious as Grace For Drowning, not as sophisticated as Raven and not as emotional/complete as Hand. Cannot. Erase. Still enjoyable, but as a whole it's mediocre for the maestro. IMO Ulver made a much better prog-meets-pop album this year.

This album isn't as bad as people say, but it definitely does pale when compared to Hand.

I just cant get into this, while usually Steven's songs turn from unknown to great, here they turned from unknown to boring.

Who cares what genre it is? It's Steven Wilson, so it's great.

No it's pretty damn awful. Boring prog-pop that just makes me wanna spin Porcupine Tree and lament the fact that we'll never get another album from them because Wilson would rather focus on this trash.

This album sounds really good, loving some of the slower dreamy or psychedelic influences of early Porcupine Tree. I would say the best track here is "Refuge", "Pariah" followed by "The Same Asylum As Before". Even the poppy commercial "Permanating" isn't annoying or bad.

Some of these hot takes here are insane.