Steven Wilson - To the Bone

Despite his 5th full-length being teased as a probably polarizing foray into a more pop-centric style, To the Bone keeps both its feet steadily rooted in the melancholic, moody prog rock for which Steven is widely revered, rather simply reaching out to tangible indie pop elements and adding them to his usual formula, but to the minor detriment of the whole album. While the electronic pop, new wave, and indie pop influences on this album don’t necessarily mesh poorly with Steven’s patented prog rock or even distract from the mood of the album, the less overtly somber musical tone Steven was trying to achieve on this record was certainly more challenging than the type of prog rock he’s mastered at this point. Indeed, Wilson’s implementations of more pop-flavored elements are little more than flirtatious, save for the flop at the mid-point of the album in the form of the poorly executed indie pop nightmare “Permanating”. The album ends up sounding not too dissimilar to his previous solo work to immediately distance his worshipful prog-boy fan-base but not so adventurous that the drop in song-writing quality is at least compensated for by fresh ideas. To the Bone is by no means a failure, but it ends up sounding like a diminished version of the more emotionally diverse Hand. Cannot. Erase. (which I loved). Steven’s weaknesses are visible on this album, but not so much that his strengths can’t outshine them; there are plenty of progressive tracks on here that do play much more to Steven’s already-established strengths like “Pariah”, which hearkens back at some moments to Porcupine Tree’s “Lazarus”, the swelling orchestral climax of “Song of I”, and the epic black-and-white sad-prog epic “Detonation”. For a supposed departure from his comfortable style, To the Bone is pretty safely played for Steven Wilson, and perhaps for the better as even just a bit out of place, his uncertainty is immediately noticeable.