On his fifth album, UK prog mastermind Steven Wilson — previously known for his work with Porcupine Tree — proves to his fans that he’s not just a passing fan of the boundary-breakers of pop music — Prince, David Bowie, Tears For Fears and Peter Gabriel, among a few others.
On a ten-track offering of pop melodies that’s stitched together with hypnotic beats and a colourful streak of guitars, Steven Wilson tells us that you can’t be a prog snob. The title track is a guitar-laden rocker, but what follows is an attempt to be catchy and cerebral at the same time — with mixed results. ‘Nowhere Now’ is a bit sappy but has an important message about the human race, while the wonderfully poignant ‘Pariah’ gives us the chills (courtesy of featured vocalist Ninet Tayeb), talking about social media, abandonment and starting over.
Wilson kicks into his next gear with a huge dose of fun, ‘The Same Asylum as Before’, the sparkling guitars stretching on for an arena-rock single. This is around when To The Bone reaches peak versatility — with the dark psychedelic ‘Refuge’ and the sudden ABBA-esque disco of ‘Permanating’ and then the dreamy interlude ‘Blank Tapes’. The album becomes murkier but Wilson remains committed to crafting melodies that stick in your head like never before, on ‘People Who Eat Darkness’, the cinematic ‘Song Of I’ and the nine-minute ‘Detonation’ (which will be all too familiar for Porcupine Tree fans). The album closes with consoling ‘Song of Unborn’, about living life and making a mark.
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Wilson attempts to blur the lines between progressive and pop music. On paper, that comes across a as a bit of an antithesis, but To The Bone is through and through a dark, intelligent pop record that lets itself stray into full-blown pop. And even though that’s done right, we hope he turns to heavier territory on the next one.