Porcupine Tree – Fear Of A Blank Planet

By 2007 Porcupine Tree was already a successful and revered prog powerhouse, and several of their albums were counted among the genre’s finest.

However, up to that point I only truly enjoyed scattered songs by them, bits and pieces here and there of the already large body of work Steven Wilson had been creating under the PT banner.

“Fear Of A Blank Planet” was received with unanimous praise, so I gave the band another go. At first I thought the same as I did about the previous albums: there was undeniable quality in there, but it just didn’t move me the same as other prog acts did. And yet something made me keep trying.

Weeks later, one evening by the time “Sleep Together” finished, I found myself staring at the stereo, trying to define what I had just heard. Since then I've been a fan, and I guess you can say “FOABP” remains my favourite PT album.

The album feels like the natural evolution of everything the band had been doing up to that point, with the title song opening with a blast in the “Deadwing” or “Blackest Eyes” fashion, ruled by almost metal riffing at some point but never forgetting to slow down at crucial moments. “My Ashes”, drenched in sweeping strings and keys, is the first hit in the feels as you feel drifting like the ashes in the title. Together with “Sentimental” and “Way Out Of Here”, they cut through your heart as razors as they unfold a gloomy view on the younger generations, numbed by technology, drugs and mental health problems with devastating lyrics like:

"I never wanna be old
And I don't want dependents
It's no fun to be told
That you can't blame your parents anymore"

And then there’s “Anesthetize”: one of those crowning songwriting achievements that Steven Wilson creates from time to time, and maybe my favourite PT song. The way it ebbs and flows is just unreal, how the harmonies and different parts engage like clockwork as they march through the harsh and the delicate while creating beauty out of the bleakest, darkest views on society, the jewel of the crown in an album that deservedly sits among the best prog records of the 21st century.