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Today, I have revisited my review of 2021’s Steven Wilson release, The Future Bites, and listened to it again before setting down these words, and I am glad to report that I still stand by everything I said (you can see it by clicking on https://lazland.org/top-ten-albums-by-year/project-one-d765j and scrolling down to the last review on this historic section of my website).
It was a deeply intelligent work, certainly in its expose of the rampant consumerism here in the UK and America in particular, and the self and world harms this is doing to us.
Fast forward now to 2023, and Wilson releases his (incredibly) seventh full studio solo album, The Harmony Codex. Now, as is usual with such releases, there are the polarities which sensible people should actively seek to avoid. On the one side, those who think it is the finest album released since The Beatles in their pomp. It is very good, but it is not that very good. On the other side, the ridiculously compulsive obsessives who declare that their former hero is the 21st century equivalent of Mr Philip Collins, a sellout and removing himself from the progressive rock tradition, and this album is the latest in a sorry line of electronic pop music better suited to Drivetime on Radio 2. As is usual, they are wrong.
The truth is somewhere on the in between spectrum. I think that for this album, Wilson has attempted to bring to the table a fusion of the wide-ranging styles evident across his solo work, plus the inevitable nod to his Porcupine Tree heritage. Sonically, it is stunning. Musically, the same. In terms of its overall feel and theme, I think this is a strong work and my favourite of his since the masterpiece that was Hand. Cannot. Erase.
Before discussing the music, mention of his collaborator, the exceptional Ninet Tayeb, whose voice I fell in love with on Hand. She is credited with writing Rock Bottom, a measure, surely, of the esteem Wilson holds her in. The remainder of the cast list is extensive, and includes Craig Blundell, Guy Pratt, Nick Beggs, Pat Mastellotto, and Theo Travis.
Inclination starts off a work over an hour long. It is full of eastern promise, strong electro funk, atmospheric noises, disturbing at times. The introduction is extended, almost half of the seven minutes plus track, before it comes to a full stop and Wilson enters vocally, and his performance here is very strong with the female harmonies especially good. This opener is a decent example of the type of track which will have the haters frothing at the mouth, but I like it, a song which is at heart a decent experimental electronic pop/rock track.
What Life Brings is next, a far gentler and traditional affair, a pleasant ballad with some more impressive sound effects and some lush guitar work in a track recalling key moments of love before an impossibly sad event. The video is embedded below, as good an expressive artwork as you will see this year. Love it all and hold it in our hands. Amen to that. Deeply moving and questing.
Economies of Scale has another official video which I also embed here. The dance is not wholly loving, it is frenetic, disturbing, almost a microcosm of modern corporate life with little time to pause and reflect until that calming evening cigarette.
Impossible Tightrope is the longest track on the album, the only one of traditional epic length, and it is simply brilliant. Another video, well worth your time sitting back, hooking up your laptop or tablet to your sound system, and allowing it to wash all over you. It is, perhaps, the best example of what I referred to in my introduction as this melding of styles. It is utterly hypnotic, with some riffs which gradually creep up on you before exploding in Tree-like fashion but adapted to the present; symphonic effects, a whirling sax bringing to mind the crazier Crimson times Wilson himself has remastered, before the piano brings with it the sounds of the sea and a haunting short vocal passage, this followed by a glorious choral passage driven by as expressive a rhythm section I have heard this year, driving guitars, psychedelic mores, spacey riffs, and the violins crying to us at the close. Sublime, and recalling a phrase invented some fifty-odd years ago, a track and video for which Art Rock is the only possible description.
The Tayeb written Rock Bottom is next, and, yes, we have another video for you to enjoy. It is smoky, it is seductive, it is an exceptional musical creation with some exquisite sounds embedded amongst the vocals. This piece strikes me as being a modern-day equivalent of classic Gabriel Amnesty International driven songwriting highlighting torture and injustice across the world. The guitar solo is achingly lovely. A stunning creation.
Beautiful Scarecrow follows this. I think the opening passage is the least convincing part of the album, a bit talky, sparse, but still featuring some very clever sounds/effects, and then the track comes to life with Travis on duduk and a relentless beat underpinning in a magnificent segment.
The title track is just short of ten minutes long. The video is embedded here and opens with the ubiquitous cubes in an empty London Underground train. Emerging into the daylight, you have the unnerving contrasting beauty and stark concrete of the city. Rotem Wilson narrates the sense of eternity in the thoughtful words. Trancey, hypnotic, dreamy probably best describes a piece of music that enthrals without seeming to do that much, and therein, of course, lies its genius, slowly but surely dragging you into its soundscape. If the 1960’s Pink Floyd were a young band in 2023, this is what they would be recording and playing – a piece of music which is a very strong contender for my 2023 track of the year, the musical embodiment of an eternal dream.
How do you follow that? Really, how do you follow such a haunting, gorgeous piece of music such as that? Wilson does it with Time Is Running Out, a reflective piece with pretty piano and vocal harmonies ruminating on the aging process. It is not exactly throwaway, but I think the best way to describe it is as a comedown from what preceded it, and it serves that purpose adequately, although the distorted voice grates on these ears a bit. The guitar solo is very good in the final minute.
Actual Brutal Facts follows. This is another track which is rather talky and certainly dark. I like some of the effects and the guitar work is impressive, especially the closing distorted riffs, with a great beat underpinning everything, but it is a song I unfortunately think of as a bit of filler.
We close with Staircase, another nine minutes plus piece and a return to the electronica phase of recent Wilson work. There is some very good programming, you clearly pick out Beggs on the Chapman Stick, and there is a very strong beat to this which sucks you in, another gorgeous guitar solo. Musically and sonically, a natural successor to much of The Future Bites, and it is very good, especially the gorgeous keyboards which lead us into the concluding voice and summary of the theme of the album.
We are lucky to have Steven Wilson as a performing artist. Of all the progressive artists who have emerged in the modern era, he has clearly been the most successful in crossing over and appealing to music fans who wouldn’t necessarily describe themselves as progressive ones, and this is done by sheer dint of talent, a truism which holds as much now as it did for artists such as Bowie back in the day. He manages that extremely difficult trick of such appeal whilst ploughing his own creative furrow.
I have not really enjoyed the last couple of PT albums. I still regard The Incident with horror, whilst last year’s Closure/Continuation, whilst superior, was sort of okay. This reviewer’s opinion is that the band with which he made his name is spent as a creative tour de force. The man himself as a solo artist, though? Absolutely not. Interesting, challenging, and intelligent music. The Harmony Codex is pretty much an essential purchase.