Band:	Steven Wilson
Album:	The Future Bites
Style:	Art Pop
Release date:	January 29, 2021
A review by:	RaduP

01. Unself
02. Self
03. King Ghost
04. 12 Things I Forgot
05. Eminent Sleaze
06. Man Of The People
07. Personal Shopper
08. Follower
09. Count Of Unease

*The deafening screeches of a thousand boomers on Steven Wilson's official Facebook group as their favorite artists makes a pop album with more synths than guitars*

A lot of the older prog rock fans might have already lived through something similar first-hand, back when the original prog rock sound was starting to lose its commercial appeal as synth pop was gaining traction. Genesis went from Selling England By The Pound to Invisible Touch, as both its lead singers started their own successful pop careers, Yes went from Close To The Edge to 90125. Even prog acts that retained their quirkiness played around with new wave sounds a lot more, like on King Crimson's Discipline or Rush' Power Windows. Pink Floyd had that disco groove "Another Brick In The Wall" as far back as 1979. Other than Jethro Tull being more metal than Metallica, the 80s weren't exceptionally kind for prog rock, but in retrospect a lot of those prog rock giants going pop gave us some of the best music of the 80s. And yet, Steven Wilson's The Future Bites doesn't find a prog rock artist struggling to keep up with the times, when most of its fanbase would be very happy to see him making the exact same prog rock.

It seems that Steven Wilson just is in a phase where he finds synths more exciting than guitars. It's not like there are no guitars on The Future Bites. It's not like he never made pop music before. His work with Blackfield or No-Man borders pretty often on pop, Porcupine Tree had its fair share of ballads, and my two favorite songs from To The Bone captured the two directions of The Future Bites: the poppy "Permananting" and the electronic "Song Of I". People already cried "pop" at that one. Since I liked those cuts most, you can expect that I was pretty excited for The Future Bites.

I tried avoiding listening to the singles, even if I already got the idea of what direction this album was going into. When I first gave this album a listen, it was in a playlist with a lot of other albums released that day listening on my speakers while working. I thought it was pretty disappointing. Now I gave it (and The B-Sides Collection that preceded and accompanies it) a more attentive listen on my best earphones. Let's just say I'm no longer disappointed. Steven Wilson's work as a musician is pretty well-known, but his work as a producer (that even lead him to remastering a lot of the biggest prog classics) is on full display here, and it is that that really necessitated my full attention and the best sound system. This is so pristine and lush in its production that it's an absolute treat to listen to on that department, just for how well the synth soundscapes and the bass sound together.

Now obviously, there's more to this album than sounding amazing. The songwriting and performances aren't as great as the production quality, not in the sense that they are bad by any means, but that the strengths of this record are pretty obvious. A lot of the songs do deliver the promise of synthier pop cuts, but there's still some relics of the Porcupine Tree-esque ballad in songs like "12 Things I Forgot" or "Count Of Unease", and it's those songs I feel least excited about. Songs like "King Ghost" or "Eminent Sleaze" don't sound like anything Steven has done before. The bass grooves are generally pretty great and work well with the synth lines, and with the presence of the guitars greatly reduced, what moments they do have are even more impactful. The songwriting as a whole definitely doesn't make any of the songs sound like something you'd hear on a mainstream radio, rather more in line with the 80s nostalgia that some of the mainstream radio also experiences (if the newest The Weeknd, Miley Cyrus and Dua Lipa didn't make that clear), but directed in a more progressive pop direction of the acts previously mentioned in the opener, with some of the electronics going either in a 80s synthpop or a 90s trip hop direction (see "King Ghost").

The vocals are something I'm a bit ambivalent towards. The backing vocals are one of the greatest things about the record, often reminding me of late era Pink Floyd in their use, especially in "Eminent Sleaze". But Steven's vocals show that he isn't really cut from the same cloth as a pop musician, hence why a lot of his poppier affairs in other projects had other people doing the vocals. Probably one of my favorite is "King Ghost" that sounds like a mix between Massive Attack and Conjure One and the heavily processed vocals lose a bit of what makes Steven Wilson Steven Wilson. That said, both some of the lyrics and some of the spoken word sections drag the album down with its fairly shallow anticonsumerist messages that range from somewhat biting to either something your dad would share on Facebook about teens being on their phones all the time or that college bro that is really impressed with that one Fight Club quote. It isn't often as distracting as in its worst moments, and the cringier moments are washed away by how great the music is. Especially now that the marketing for the album is mostly in the past.

What I don't really understand is how the selection was made between what would end up on the main album and what would end up on the The B-Sides Collection, since I find all of the cuts on the latter (except the remix of a track, which makes sense being on the B-album) to be better than at least half the tracklist of the main album. Bottom line is: listen to both.