Steven Wilson - The Raven That Refused To Sing (And Other Stories) (Album Review)
Friday, 15 February 2013
Written by Ben Bland
The last couple of years have been perhaps the most important in Steven Wilson’s career to date. Reception to 2011’s 'Grace for Drowning' was almost unanimously positive, and deservedly so. His second solo album was not just an ambitious double record, it was as near to perfection as ‘progressive rock’ has ever been. It was musically expansive without being over the top, emotionally potent without being trite and, most importantly of all, intensely listenable. As a result, 'The Raven that Refused to Sing (and Other Stories)' arrives as possibly the most anticipated record of Wilson’s career to date.
Whether projects like Porcupine Tree and No-Man have been put to bed or not we can only speculate, but this record’s arrival around eighteen months after its predecessor is testament to the amount of attention Wilson devotes to his solo endeavours nowadays. The difference here of course is that the record has been composed specifically with the musicians that are part of Wilson’s solo live band in mind (although Guthrie Govan replaces Niko Tsonev on guitar). Whether either of these things is to blame for the general tepidity of this record is hard to determine.
Certainly, 'The Raven...' is a whole lot more predictable than Wilson’s previous solo albums. Both 'Insurgentes' and 'Grace for Drowning' stood out largely because they incorporated aspects of all Wilson’s schizophrenic musical personalities into one. Certainly they were ‘prog’ records, but a more free reined compositional process clearly enabled Wilson to incorporate elements of whatever he fancied, whenever he fancied. The twenty-three minute Crimson-aping opus 'Raider II' from 'Grace for Drowning', for example, would be of far less significance if it wasn’t for its incorporation of atmospheric drone elements more familiar in Wilson’s Bass Communion drone project, and hefty doses of jazz. Here though all we get is prog rock, the whole way through.
Opener 'Luminol' made its debut on the last Wilson solo tour, and made it onto the following live DVD, 'Get All You Deserve' as a result. At twelve minutes in length you could be forgiven for expecting something a little more exciting. Certainly the prominence of Nick Beggs’ bass is rather compelling, and the way it all ends up at the same point where it began is pleasing, but the fact that it is probably twice as long as it needs to be makes for a worrying start. This marks a theme for the longer tracks on the album. 'The Holy Drinker' contains almost nothing of genuine excitement. There are several half decent ideas littered throughout the track but you could be listening to any random prog band from the seventies and not be any the wiser. 'The Watchmaker' comes closer to raising the bar for the record, but again suffers badly from overly elongated sections that really have debatable merit in their inclusion, let alone in their actual length. Whenever more diverse musical themes are introduced, meanwhile, they are rendered lifeless by arrangements that cater to the aesthetics of seventies-style production rather than to the interests of the song (as was the case on 'Grace for Drowning').
The shorter tracks are more palatable but even they are occasionally spoilt by some curious decision-making. Guthrie Govan’s guitar solo on 'Drive Home' is so over precise that it sounds almost like it’s being played by a computer, whilst the outro to the title track is long enough to deprive the song of some of the emotional force it previously wielded. The bonus about the shorter songs, however, is that they are concise enough to act as fully realised musical pieces. The three ‘epic’ tracks get so bogged down that by the time they are over, one is still none the wiser as to what they were trying to do in the first place.
As a long-term listener of Wilson’s varying output I cannot pretend to be slightly confused at his methodology on 'The Raven that Refused to Sing (and Other Stories)'. This is an album that seems to confirm a few of the worst stereotypes of ‘prog’ with ease. We get some overly lengthy songs and plenty of lifeless instrumentation. We get banal lyrics ('Luminol' is the worst culprit) and a vague overhanging concept (ghost stories, apparently). On the previous solo albums, Wilson provided a vision of ‘progressive rock’ that worked because it had a modern edge which made it palatable. That work seems to have been undone on this album, which is so retro that Alan Parsons was even roped in to help out on the engineering front. This record will appeal to those who want a straightforward ‘prog’ album, and to many Wilson obsessives, but to these ears it seems somewhat lacking in inspiration by the high standards that Steven Wilson usually operates at. 'The Raven that Refused to Sing (and Other Stories)' isn’t a write-off by any stretch of the imagination but it isn’t going to go down as a highlight in the discography of an artist capable of much more interesting material.
'The Raven that Refused to Sing (and Other Stories)' is out on 25th February via Kscope. Steven Wilson tours the UK in March. Tickets are on sale now.
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Whether projects like Porcupine Tree and No-Man have been put to bed or not we can only speculate, but this record’s arrival around eighteen months after its predecessor is testament to the amount of attention Wilson devotes to his solo endeavours nowadays. The difference here of course is that the record has been composed specifically with the musicians that are part of Wilson’s solo live band in mind (although Guthrie Govan replaces Niko Tsonev on guitar). Whether either of these things is to blame for the general tepidity of this record is hard to determine.
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