STEVEN WILSON: Insurgentes (PROGRESSIVE ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

If you regularly practice Music Waves, you know Steven Wilson's name. To put things in perspective, English is an extremely influential producer in the world of progressive music in general. He has produced three Opeth albums, composed for Fish, participated in several albums of major progressive metal bands such as Dream Theater and is the brilliant sire of Porcupine Tree.

The initial originality of "Insurgents" lies in its composition process. It took place between January and August of this year in a multitude of places around the world. Steven Wilson has immersed himself in the images, sounds and smells he has encountered throughout his travels. A large dose of esotericism surrounds this object and, as we will see later, colours a relatively diversified music with an impressionist dimension. "Insurgents" is the Spanish word for "insurgents", and this is sometimes the case with the content of this disc. Steven Wilson rebelled against the habits of his different formations. Better than rebelling, he broke down barriers to propose a mix of everything he could write within his projects.

The album begins in the best way for the listener with "Harmony Korine", a mid-tempo with a powerful chorus and a fragile voice that joins "FOABP" and this opus. Porcupine Tree's "Sky Moves Sideways" period is quite well represented by "Veneno Para Las Hadas" with its atmospheric and psychedelic side and "Salvaging" with its repetitive arpeggios transcended by a magnificent orchestration in the second part of the song. Other sequences use the ambient side of No Man like "Abandon" with its slow tempo, drum loops and hypnotic sound effects boosted with suspended power chords. But, if "Abandon" is one of the successful tracks on the album, other tracks only keep the experimental side of No Man to give birth to sound monsters closer to cacophony than anything else like "Get All You Deserve" or the instrumental "Twilight Coda".

Apart from these two compositions, to which it is difficult to adhere, the pleasure and the surprise are great when the almost instrumental 'No Twilight Within The Courts of The Sun' begins. This atypical piece in Steven Wilson's discography is a blues camouflaged in jam (or the opposite) that transports us back to the 70's. Tony Levin and Gavin Harrison (still masterful) print a wild groove on which Wilson's distorted guitar improvises tortured choruses. Just for the rhythm section this song is interesting. If you also add a final part in which a light melody at the piano shares the star with ethereal voices, you will have a very original and contrasting title. Among the other particularities of the album, "Only Child" surprises by its enormous bass which sets the tone of the song, but especially by its production with a much rougher rendering than for all the other tracks on the album. 'Significant Other' would rather be to be classified in the Blackfield movement, as well as the magnificent 'Insurgents'. The first one has the pop side of Blackfield with a pinch of psychedelia in addition. "Insurgents" is a very melancholic piano melody carried by a moving Steven Wilson.

By this quick selection of titles from this album event we can deduce two main orientations. The first is the relative diversity in the essence of the structures by sweeping away all kinds of inspirations. The second is the strong impression of darkness that emerges when listening to it. Little space is left for feelings of joy or cheerfulness and this is reinforced by the many incursions of cacophonic atmospheres here and there. Steven Wilson is not known to be a particularly playful composer, but in this case, a willingness is clearly expressed.

If you like Steven Wilson's style you will have a lot of fun listening to this album as always extremely well produced. Among the reservations, one would have expected a greater risk to be taken in the musical direction of the record. "Insurgents" remains a demanding record that requires a certain amount of time to be tamed in order to be able to judge it. - Official website

STEVEN WILSON

INSURGENTES

KSCOPE

PROGRESSIVE ROCK