Porcupine Tree

Nil Recurring

Written by: TL on 30/03/2008 22:40:42

Things have been speeding up to the point where you can barely hang on in the life of this reviewer at the moment, and I can\'t say that\'s not the way I prefer it, however, it has been brought to my attention that I have not produced any reviews for a considerable amount of time now, so to make up for it, here I am, battling my heavy eyelids and trying to finish up a summary of what\'s going on on Porcupine Tree\'s latest release, the \"Nil Recurring\" EP.

Now I rarely submit to the idea that there\'s any use for subjective evaluations when it comes to music, and usually I would measure a record against the scale that countless records and liveshows have built in my conscience. However, from what I\'ve heard, Porcupine Tree is supposed to be a rather big deal in the world of progressive music and I find nothing on \"Nil Recurring\" to undermine such a status. Slowly and subtly the progressions are established on each song with acoustic or semi-acoustic guitar riffs intertwining with ambience, leading up to bursts of chugging distorted riffs and groovy bass lines, the latter most clearly displayed on the third track \"Cheating The Polygraph\".

The track is one out of four present on this EP that is also made up of an instrumental opening, which is then in turn followed by the most ear-catching track \"Normal\", that boast of a string section The Mars Volta would probably very much love to have back, as well as a catchy refrain in the words \"Wish I was old and a little - sentimental..\". The fourth and final track \"What Happens Now\" however, is the best display for the things that ground for my rant about subjectivity. There\'s enough details, of the kind fans of more simple music would label as pretentious, going on in this song and on the EP in general to prevent me from calling it uninteresting. Then on the other hand what is going on is mostly either so subtle or so spaced out that I\'m still yawning. You see for my taste there\'s simply not enough payload in this batch of prog, and just as I dislike things that are fast and heavy ALL the time, I also get bored with things that never change from the slow and quiet - And that\'s how I feel about Nil Recurring. The artistic and musical quality is there but personally I find that there\'s way to little spark to give me a hard one, and from a quick listen on myspace, they have better material out already.

Download: Normal
For the fans of: Baroness, The Mars Volta, Pure Reason Revolution
Listen: Myspace

Release date: 18.02.2008
Peaceville Records
Provided by Target ApS

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