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Steven Wilson – The Future Bites

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What does it sound like?:

One thing that can be said for Steven Wilson is that he never stands still. Anyone who’s involved in so many bands, projects, side-projects and work for other artists is always going to be hard to pin down and that’s clearly the way he likes it.

That, of course, can have potential downsides, especially from a commercial point of view and there’s no guarantee that if you liked any of his previous work, you’re going to accept the next thing that comes along. I presume this is a risk that Wilson doesn’t care about as there’s either a) a pleasing progression over his last few albums as he gracefully changes tack and develops as an artist or b) an unwelcome move away from the more prog-tastic work of his earlier career as he chases a bit more commercial success. You’re going to have to pick a side with this new album.

‘Hand. Cannot. Erase’ is peak Wilson for me so far and this new album doesn’t change that. It continues the move towards generally shorter, more traditionally commercial pieces that started with ‘To The Bone’ and there’s no doubt that there are several excellent, melodic tracks on the album, some of which would be “hit singles” in world where that meant much anymore or it was easier for an artist to more easily get in front of more people.

Arrangements generally fit the mood and although I can’t comment on sound quality as this was early access via a stream I think you can safely say that it will be great – it’s a Steven Wilson album after all. There’s that nagging sense that you’ve heard some of the songs before which is either the mark of a brilliant songwriter or someone who has run out of ideas but the quality of the song writing is just too good to start thinking about that just yet. The album is littered with musical and production nods to the decades – at some points I felt as if I was listening to a 10cc album (and that’s a positive, by the way)!

I prefer Wilson when the sonic reins are let loose and although there are flashes of that, there’s no ‘Home Invasion/Regret #9’ here, with the possible exception of the lead taster from last year ‘Personal Shopper’. It’s the longest track at almost 10 minutes but a chunk of that is taken up with Sir Elton reading out a list of products and services hammering home Wilson’s point about consumerism. That also raises another issue for me in that just occasionally some of the lyrics and the overall feel of the narrative here are a bit too 6th form for an artist of Wilson’s stature and I find it grating at times, no matter how much I take the point he’s trying to make.

What does it all *mean*?

Overall, more sing-along than air guitar, there are undoubtedly some fine songs on this album and melodic content replaces the emotional power of some of the tracks from H.C.E.. I wonder if that’s enough? I felt much the same way about ‘To The Bone’ and it’s not an album I’ve gone back to many times. Having said that, I think this is step up from that album and I WILL be buying this (waiting for my pre-ordered copy as I write) and for the consumers amongst you, it is available in multiple formats, including 5.1 and even a Dolby Atmos mix if you’ve got the kit to listen to it.

Goes well with…

Release Date:

Out now

Might suit people who like…

A night on the Dodgers shopping

2

Comments

  2. I like what I’ve heard so far. I think the idea that is some kind of radical departure is a bit daft though. You would recognise the artist from HCE immediately, you would recognise the type of tunes he comes up with and the mood of them. It’s just that there’s more synths and less guitar. It’s not synth pop. There are those who dread to be found out and mocked listening to something they consider not sufficiently hard and manly and possibly is meant for girls. Prog fans can be a bit like that, conservative and narrow minded. And yet look at some of the laugable drivel they think should be admired. Some of it’s a bit Peter Gabriel and Robert Fripp I think. FOLLOWER is very good. Why the CAPITALS?

    • Certainly. There are a number of bogus items on the website to hammer home the point (canned air, anyone).

      Despite a couple of reservations I DO like the album and indeed my Dolby Atmos copy has just popped through the letterbox

  6. I’ve just sat through 20 minutes of an unboxing video for a one of a kind boxed set of this album (listened to the album the other day and found it a bit meh, but I’ll listen again in a couple of days) that one lucky (until his wife finds out) punter paid £10k for. There are some pretty impressive extras thrown in, but you’d have to be a very wealthy completist to pay that much, and a pretty daft one not to also buy a copy of the standard limited edition box, so as not to have to open your No.1 copy.

    I’m a Stephen Duffy completist, and as I was watching this bloke flicking through a handful of dull Polaroids my mind drifted to owning a Duffy boxed set like this, but that would have meant he’d have attained a certain level of popularity (and a Grammy nomination), so I’d no longer be able to watch him playing in record shops with another dozen people, so I’m not sure I’d like that. Rock snob to the end.

    https://www.superdeluxeedition.com/feature/saturday-deluxe-30-january-2021/

    • As for the »very wealthy completist« – the guy clearly understood the concept behind all those Future Bites »consumer goods« (real or fake), and as he obviously had the money to spare he bought the No.1 box. From all I heard it’s not some investment, and as most of the content is unique to the 10k box, to NOT open it would be extremely daft.

      The standard Deluxe Box by the way is a treasure trove of hidden jokes, ironic features and marketing parodies, and like the Hand.Cannot.Erase. book it will surely keep me entertained for months.

      Has anybody mentioned that the actual music for the most part sounds like an update of 10cc circa »Original Soundtrack«?

      • What I meant was that within the £10k box there is a sealed copy of the £75 box set that is limited to 5,000 copies, which is numbered 1 of 5,000. So I was suggesting to buy another copy of that and leave his number 1 box sealed, as there’s nothing within that box that’s different from boxes 2 to 5,000. So definitely open the larger box to get to all the one of a kind goodies, but leave the box within the box sealed. If he can cough up $13,000 dollars for the bigger box, I’m sure he can afford an extra £75 for another copy of the smaller one.

            • Good that the money he gets from this is going straight to the Music Venues Trust. Though he possibly would have raised more money for them if he’d put the really exclusive stuff up for auction instead.

              The box will eventually be stored away somewhere, after the owner has ripped all of the audio content, shown it to his buddies and looked at the book etc. enough.
              It’s certainly a rare and currently-valuable artifact. I wonder if it will still be valuable in 30-40 years time when his kids find it tucked away somewhere in the house.

              • Kids? Do you reckon someone who spent £10k on a record is married? I reckon my divorce would have come much sooner than this if I’d done that and the hospitals are busy enough as it is without me having to go to A&E to have a boxed set removed from my arse.

                • A stinky-rich American with a wife who has a designer handbag habit could well spend the odd £10k on musical artifacts without incurring her wrath.
                  I have no idea what the marital status of the buyer is. Judging by the glimpse of him reflected in the included mirror, while not an Adonis he’s not unmarriageably ugly.

  7. I wasn’t much impressed by the various ‘singles’ over the last year and wasn’t feeling overly excited by the impending album. I say this as a big SW fan and Hand.Cannot.Erase is one of favourite releases of this century. I decided I would give it 3 listens before commenting (@Twang said that 6 listens is the Tigger rule but that’s just ridiculous!).

    Listen 1 left me feeling still a little dissatisfied but the songs I’d heard in context now working much better. After 3 though I’m thinking this is a fantastic record certainly better than To The Bone. Yes it’s a different direction but not overly so and there are bags of great tunes and beautiful arrangements and it sounds stunning on proper hi fi. Been a lot of talk about it being 80s influenced – yeah maybe a bit (Human League chorus in Personal Shopper) but there is still the 70s Floyd and as Fatima mentions above even a bit of 10cc in Eminent Sleaze. Less guitar and more keys, more drum programming, more backing vocals (which really add a new dimension). But it doesn’t overly sound like anyone else. In short it’s another great record from the perpetually questing Steven Wilson – God bless him.

  8. I’m a huge fan, well quite tall anyway, but I’m in the very disappointed camp on this one. H.C.E is my favourite album by anyone ever. I liked most of the last one To The Bone including Permanating although thought he left the best track (Door Marked Summer) on the extras disc. But THIS? I’ve played it maybe 3 times plus previous listens to the singles as they came out. Some of it is OK (some of the extras again seem better than the actual album) but I haven’t felt such betrayal since Genesis released Abacab.
    Obviously he can do what he likes but he does seem to have pissed off a large percentage of his fan base. He won’t care.

  9. Where should I start with Mr Wilson? I’m an 80’s kid who likes his spangly guitars and I own the Moonloop EP for the fabulous Stars Die but I know of nothing else he has done.

    • I’d suggest starting with The Raven That Refused To Sing, which is quite a retro sounding album, with nods to Yes & King Crimson in the first song, the songs and tunes are great, there’s lots of guitar and mellotron. I think it’s all on YouTube if you want to give it a listen.
      If you like that, the follow up Hand Cannot Erase is fabulous but a little harder to get into.
      Or if you want more Porcupine Tree, In Absentia is thought to be their best. It’s been reissued recently so you might pick up an original copy cheaply.

    • My faves are PT’s The Sky Moves Sideways and No-Man’s Flowermouth.

      Tread carefully – there’s an awful lot of proggy/metal stuff. I went to see PT play during one of their metal phases and I was bored witless.

  10. Where to start with SW – that’s a good question and totally depends on what your preferences are as he covers a large spectrum of styles.

    Personally I think Raven a bit of a tough listen not my favourite but definitely one for your die hard retro Prog fans.
    Hand is a bit more diverse still with a strong Prog base but with a few more poppy elements and To The Bone moves that on further is stepping stone between that and the more out and out electronic sounds of TFB.
    As you’ve heard Porcupine Tree then indeed most would agree that In Abstentia is probably their best album.
    For more out and out pop/melodic style and jangly guitars then give his side project Blackfield a try. If you fancy something a bit more ambient then the No-Man project is excellent – especially Schoolyard Ghosts.
    There is something for just about anyone.

    • Thing about the Tree is they change a lot. The early stuff is very spacy trippy stuff, then he discovers songs then gets really into heavy rock guitars. In Absentia is a good example of the late period but so is Deadwing. I think as a good mix Lightbulb Sun is an excellent place to start. But it’s all good and very varied. He used synths, drum machines before. There’s just more of them on this album as he’s got bored with guitars.

  11. Great review Ainsley. HCE is peak Wilson for me too, love it from start to finish, closely followed by Raven. Despite the grumbling from the die-hard prog/Porcupine Tree community I really like To The Bone as well, possibly a couple of his best songs on there.

    I haven’t quite made it to the obligatory six listens with TFB yet, but I like it so far. Yet it hasn’t grabbed me as much as previous albums, hopefully it’s a slow burner. It feels like there’s something missing and it doesn’t seem to flow quite right. I wish he hadn’t released half of the album before it came out. By the time of release there was only 15 minutes of new music (excluding extra tracks). I understand wanting to keep the momentum going when the release date was put back, but I think it’s detracted from that little bit of excitement you get when a favourite artist releases an album. A good interview with him here https://www.innerviews.org/inner/steven-wilson-4 seems like they’ll be more to come from TFB.

    I love the fact that he changes all the time, it’s one of the reasons I listen to him. There are plenty of bog-standard prog bands out there, and I like a lot of them, but sometimes I like to listen to something with less than seven time signatures. He’s done 70’s prog, 80’s electronic and pop. What next? Madchester, Britpop, acid house, grunge? Whatever’s next will at least be interesting.

  12. I’m a bit tired listening to all of this ! I’m a bit of a spangly guitar fan , not so keen on abrupt time signature changes. Put it this way , my Rush phase for example was when they embraced synths. I’ll investigate his various bands when I’ve taken this all in. Thanks all.

  14. Like a few others here I really need to investigate Steven Wilson. Someone posted ‘Permanating’ on this forum a couple of years ago and I think it’s still my favourite piece of music of the last 5 years or so. But that’s all I’d heard until last week. I bought the Nonsuch bluray edition with his remixes – totally blown away. Have ordered Songs From The Big Chair 30th anniversary set just to hear his 5.1 mix.

    Sounds like this new one isn’t the best place to start but will certainly be trying out more of his work.

  15. The original closing song for the album that was replaced by Count Of Unease at the last gasp – a demo appeared on the deluxe set but this is the finished version…

  16. I finally got round to listening to this, and it’s been on repeat. I think it’s great, really creative sound design and great songs. I haven’t really bothered with him much until now. I agree with the 10cc comparison, it’s almost like they did an album in 1985 produced by Trevor Horn.

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