I'm listening to a sneaky early download of Steven Wilson’s upcoming album The Raven That Refused To Sing (And Other Stories). I love the nicely pretentious title, and at times the music is like jumping back 40 years. Imagine Zappa’s early / mid 70s ensembles playing with the Mahavishnu Orchestra underpinned by Crimson’s Bruford / Wetton rhythm section (all that heavy thud work and monstrous complex drumming), and you are kind of approaching the density and sheer bonkers-ness of this music.
But it sounds oddly modern too - the production is amazing, as you'd expect with SW, and it sounds so immediate; on headphones the band is all around you.
There’s mellotrons and flutes too, which are clearly a nod to early King Crimson, but also some very pretty melodies as well as some heavy riffing and insanely complicated stuff too. It made me smile a lot too, which is always a good sign. The music is endlessly fascinating and actually quite exhilarating. The title track is uplifting and epic and claustrophobic and personal and downright emotional all at the same time. Quite a feat.
I can’t think of anyone else creating this complex, yet still accessible jazzy, rocky, proggy, fusiony music like this these days. Wilson is absolutely in a field of his own. There’s even some seriously sharp guitar shredding courtesy of Chelmsford’s own Guthrie Govan, now a permanent fixture in Wilson’s band it seems. Whilst I’m doing fine with my MP3 download at the moment it’s very clear that the cd will sound incredible on a decent system.
I can’t think of anyone else creating this complex, yet still accessible jazzy, rocky, proggy, fusiony music like this these days. Wilson is absolutely in a field of his own. There’s even some seriously sharp guitar shredding courtesy of Chelmsford’s own Guthrie Govan, now a permanent fixture in Wilson’s band it seems. Whilst I’m doing fine with my MP3 download at the moment it’s very clear that the cd will sound incredible on a decent system.
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