Deadwing | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Studio album by | ||||
Released | 24 March 2005 | |||
Recorded | Various English cities March–October 2004 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 59:35(Europe/Original edition) 64:34 (US edition) 79:07 (DVD-A edition) | |||
Label | Lava | |||
Producer | Steven Wilson, Gavin Harrison, Richard Barbieri | |||
Porcupine Tree chronology | ||||
| ||||
Singles from Deadwing | ||||
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [2] |
DIY | [3] |
Kludge | 9/10 [4] |
KNAC | (favourable) [5] |
Metal Storm | 10/10 [6] |
musicOMH | (favourable) [7] |
Record Collector | [8] |
Rock Hard | 8.5/10 [9] |
Sputnikmusic | [10] |
Virgin Media | (favourable) [11] |
Deadwing is the eighth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, released in Japan on 24 March 2005, in Europe on 28 March, [12] and in the US on 26 April. It quickly became the band's best selling album, although it was later surpassed by Fear of a Blank Planet . The album is based on a screenplay written by Steven Wilson and Mike Bennion, and is a ghost story. Wilson has stated that the songs "Deadwing", "Lazarus", "Arriving Somewhere but Not Here", "Open Car", and "Mellotron Scratch" were originally intended for the film soundtrack, but when the project failed to find funding they were instead recorded for the next Porcupine Tree album. The album versions of "Lazarus" and "Open Car" essentially remain Wilson solo tracks onto which Gavin Harrison overdubbed drums.
The album produced two singles: "Shallow" and "Lazarus". "Shallow" also appeared in the movie Four Brothers . [13] It can be heard as background music in a bar. The album also produced music videos for "Lazarus", "The Start of Something Beautiful", and "Glass Arm Shattering".
The album includes collaborations with King Crimson's Adrian Belew, who plays guitar solos on the title track and "Halo", and Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt, who adds vocal harmonies on "Deadwing", "Lazarus", and "Arriving Somewhere but Not Here". He also plays the second guitar solo on "Arriving Somewhere but Not Here".
In 2017, Kscope Records purchased the album as well as the previous album In Absentia ; both were remastered and rereleased in 2018 through the label, with the new versions having less compression and an overall improvement in sound quality. [14]
Wilson described the album as a surreal "ghost story", and said that "the idea is ultimately that this album will form a kind of companion with the feature film." [15] He stated that David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick were major influences for the script. [16]
While introducing the song "Lazarus" during the Shepherds Bush Empire concert in December 2005, Steven Wilson explained that this song was about a mother communicating with her young son "from the grave".[ citation needed ]
On 1 September 2006, Steven Wilson announced in his blog that Mike Bennion (co-writer of the Deadwing screenplay) had released the first fifteen pages of the story.[ citation needed ] The film script thus far has made several connections to the album, including a reference to the line in "Mellotron Scratch" "A tiny flame inside my hand", the man mentioned in "Lazarus" "My David don't you worry", and to the artwork in the album's cover insert.
On 3 January 2019, Steven Wilson posted on Facebook [17] that he and Bennion had recently "reactivated and rewritten [the script] with a view to trying again [to make the film]", but that the name of the script had changed. Wilson also revealed that the "David" from the song "Lazarus" is the main character in the Deadwing script.
In a comment on the loudness war, Steven Wilson mentioned how he considered placing a message on record sleeves that reads as follows: "Please note that this record may not be mastered as loudly as some of the other records in your collection. This is in order to retain the dynamic range and subtlety of the music. Please, use your volume knob." Conversely, the CD version of the album has been proven to contain clipping and dynamic range compression, whereas the 5.1 surround mix on the DVD-A version does not. [18] However, subsequent releases Fear of a Blank Planet and Nil Recurring are mastered at lower levels, preserving more of their original dynamic range. [19]
The members of the band have made several evaluations of the album's tracks over the years. [20]
"Deadwing" – Steven, "A ten-minute piece that's very in-your-face and has no real chorus, so it's an ambitious way to start the record. A very unconventional piece of music. It's a statement of intent, a willfully uncommercial gesture." It is interesting to note that the pulsing keyboard sound at the start of the song is similar to that used by Steven on 'First Regret', which opened his 2015 LP, Hand. Cannot. Erase.
"Shallow" – Steven explained, "The big rock moment of the record, an irresistible riff with a Zep or Soundgarden vibe to it. The equivalent of a big, dumb rock song, but in the way that people who are not dumb would do it." Richard remarked, "I tell you what I didn't like on Deadwing and that's a track called 'Shallow'. It's so out of context for Porcupine Tree. It really didn't feel like Porcupine Tree to me. It just had too much of a knowing sound to it. American kind of rock. There wasn't that naivety about it or that honesty about it." Steven Wilson later admitted in an interview that "Shallow" was written and recorded after pressure from the record label to create a radio-friendly hit off the album.
"Lazarus" – keyboardist Richard Barbieri's evaluation, "The beautiful side of Porcupine Tree. Very mellow and delicate, in the contemporary style of Coldplay or Radiohead."
"Halo" – Steven clarified, "Well, 'Halo' was on Deadwing, as Deadwing, as you probably know, is based on this film script I wrote. And there is a religious aspect in the script, there is a religious cult in the script. But the song itself 'Halo' takes that as a starting point and develops into another kind of idea. It is about the born again Christianity, the born again religious parts, the self-righteousness of those kind of people." Bassist Colin Edwin added his thoughts on 'Halo', "We came up with that round Gavin's place whilst having a group session for Deadwing. Bits of that came from Gavin having an idea in 17/16. That was pretty much a group thing. It came together quite quickly." Gavin's inspiration came about during his regular drum experiments and, with the rest of the band on board, they spent an hour working on the idea in Gavin's home studio where the writing sessions would usually take place. Steven subsequently took their work away and formed the song. Richard explained, "Gavin and I came up with this infectious groove. Has an industrial feel a la Nine Inch Nails; quirky, abrasive, and repetitive with distorted vocals, and an extraordinarily strange Adrian Belew guitar solo."
"Arriving Somewhere but Not Here" – Steven explained, "The centre-piece of the record. The most ambitious track in terms of its horizontal complexity, and its length, thirteen minutes. Slowly develops from an ambient keyboard intro. The band's progressive side coming to the fore."
"Mellotron Scratch" – Steven remarked, "The most chilled-out track on the record. Lots of overlapping harmonies, and different three-part vocal lines simultaneously weaving in and out of each other. I really went to town with that side of my musical personality."
"Open Car" – Steven stated, "'Open Car' had been one everyone was thinking was going to be a B-side. I substituted that in the mastering. I was listening to it, and I was thinking 'this is such a great track, it's come out so well' and 'So Called Friend', all the way through writing we always thought that's a great track and the final mix didn't quite gel for me. We also did it with 'Glass Arm' and 'Half-Light' as well, although the changes were made a week before the mastering."
"The Start of Something Beautiful" – Richard continued, "One of my favourites; explores the band's love of unconventional time signatures. It has a groove bass line, a contemporary feel, and it washes into a beautiful textual finish line. Classic Porcupine Tree." 'The Start of Something Beautiful' was another song which originated from an idea Gavin had while experimenting, that he titled '9 To 5'. During the writing sessions at Gavin's studio, he played it to Steven, who liked it and started jamming along on bass guitar, and so the foundations of the song were formed.
"Glass Arm Shattering" – Steven enthused, "The final epic blow-out. Has more of the aspects that people associate with the classic early sound of the band, our spacious, dreamy, almost Floyd-ian textural side. That's obviously a big part of the band's personality."
"So Called Friend" – Richard remarked, "A short, fairly heavy riff-based piece. I really like what's going on in the verses and bridges."
The band stated that 15 songs were recorded during the Deadwing sessions. The initial release, for Europe, contained only 9 tracks. All versions contain those initial 9 tracks in the same order. For the later U.S. release, an additional track was added on, the 2004 re-recorded version of "Shesmovedon", which was originally released on their 2000 Lightbulb Sun , bringing the total to 10.
The album was also released as a DVD-Audio disc on 10 May 2005 by DTS Entertainment. The disc contains 5.1-channel surround versions of all the tracks from the US CD ("Shesmovedon (2004)" was included as an unlisted extra track.) plus three bonus tracks: "Revenant", "Mother and Child Divided" and "Half-Light", bringing the total to 13 songs.
One more song, "So Called Friend", was released on the "Lazarus" single, bringing it up to 14 songs. There is another song titled "Christenings": while it was never released as a Porcupine Tree song, it was eventually released on Steven Wilson's side project, Blackfield's 2007 album Blackfield II . An instrumental demo called "Collecting Space" made in 2003 during writing sessions for Deadwing, but never recorded by the band. A proper version of this piece was released on the limited edition of Wilson's first solo album Insurgentes as a bonus track. Another possible song from this time is "Godfearing", which was later released on the web and of which Wilson doesn't recall the exact recording period, but it was either during Deadwing or In Absentia .
No. | Title | Music | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Deadwing" | Wilson | 9:46 |
2. | "Shallow" | Wilson | 4:17 |
3. | "Lazarus" | Wilson | 4:18 |
4. | "Halo" | Barbieri, Edwin, Harrison, Wilson | 4:38 |
5. | "Arriving Somewhere but Not Here" | Wilson | 12:02 |
6. | "Mellotron Scratch" | Wilson | 6:57 |
7. | "Open Car" | Wilson | 3:46 |
8. | "Start of Something Beautiful" | Harrison, Wilson | 7:39 |
9. | "Glass Arm Shattering" | Barbieri, Edwin, Harrison, Wilson | 6:17 |
No. | Title | Music | Length |
---|---|---|---|
10. | "Shesmovedon (2004)" | Wilson | 4:59 |
No. | Title | Music | Length |
---|---|---|---|
10. | "Revenant" | Barbieri | 3:04 |
11. | "Mother & Child Divided" | Harrison, Wilson | 6:20 |
12. | "Half-Light" | Wilson | 6:20 |
13. | "Shesmovedon (2004)" (unlisted easter egg track) | Wilson | 4:59 |
No. | Title | Music | Length |
---|---|---|---|
10. | "So Called Friend" | Barbieri, Edwin, Harrison, Wilson | 4:49 |
11. | "Half-Light" | Wilson | 6:20 |
All tracks are written by Steven Wilson, except where noted
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Revenant" | Barbieri | 3:05 |
2. | "So Called Friend" | 4:49 | |
3. | "Shesmovedon (2004)" | 4:55 | |
4. | "Mother And Child Divided" | Harrison, Wilson | 5:00 |
5. | "Half-Light" | 6:38 | |
Total length: | 24:27 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Arriving Somewhere But Not Here" (demo) | 13:03 | |
2. | "Godfearing" (demo) | 4:57 | |
3. | "Lazarus" (demo) | 4:10 | |
4. | "Open Car" (demo) | 5:08 | |
5. | "Vapour Trail" (demo) | 3:53 | |
6. | "Shallow" (demo) | 4:15 | |
7. | "Deadwing" (demo) | 10:35 | |
8. | "Mother And Child Divided" (demo) | Harrison, Wilson | 5:02 |
9. | "Instrumental Demo 1" | Barbieri, Edwin, Harrison, Wilson | 5:19 |
10. | "Halo" (demo) | Barbieri, Edwin, Harrison, Wilson | 4:50 |
11. | "Instrumental Demo 2" | Barbieri, Edwin, Harrison, Wilson | 5:23 |
12. | "So Called Friend" (demo) | Barbieri, Edwin, Harrison, Wilson | 5:01 |
13. | "Glass Arm Jam" | Barbieri, Edwin, Harrison, Wilson | 4:19 |
Total length: | 71:00 |
Deadwing won the "Best Made-For-Surround Title" award for the 2005 Surround Music Awards, [22] and was voted the number 2 album of 2005 in Sound & Vision , which is the most widely distributed US magazine in the field of home electronics and entertainment. [23] In addition to this, the album won the "Album of the Year" award for the 2005 Classic Rock magazine awards. [24] The album was named as one of Classic Rock's 10 essential progressive rock albums of the decade. [25]
Chart | Peak Position |
---|---|
Billboard 200 [26] | 132 |
France [27] | 100 |
Germany | 52 |
Greece [28] | 19 |
Netherlands [29] | 56 |
Poland [30] | 11 |
Sweden [31] | 26 |
Top Heatseekers [26] | 4 |
Top Internet Albums [32] | 6 |
United Kingdom | 97 |
Song | Chart | Position |
---|---|---|
"Shallow" | Mainstream Rock Tracks [33] | 26 |
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Porcupine Tree are an English rock band formed by musician Steven Wilson in 1987. During an initial career spanning more than twenty years, they earned critical acclaim from critics and fellow musicians, developed a cult following, and became an influence for new artists. The group carved out a career at a certain distance away from mainstream music, being described by publications such as Classic Rock and PopMatters as "the most important band you'd never heard of".
Steven John Wilson is an English musician. He is the founder, guitarist, lead vocalist and songwriter of the rock band Porcupine Tree, as well as being a member of several other bands, including Blackfield, Storm Corrosion and No-Man. He is also a solo artist, having released seven solo albums since his solo debut Insurgentes in 2008. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Wilson has made music prolifically and earned critical acclaim. His honours include six nominations for Grammy Awards: twice with Porcupine Tree, once with his collaborative band Storm Corrosion and three times as a solo artist. In 2017, The Daily Telegraph described him as "a resolutely independent artist" and "probably the most successful British artist you've never heard of".
Richard Barbieri is an English musician, composer and sound designer. Originally a member of new wave band Japan, more recently he is known as the keyboard player in the progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, which he joined in 1993. Aside from the founder Steven Wilson, he is the longest tenured member of Porcupine Tree.
In Absentia is the seventh studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released on 24 September 2002. The album marked several changes for the band, with it being the first with new drummer Gavin Harrison and the first to move into a more progressive metal direction, contrary to past albums' psychedelic and alternative rock sounds. Additionally, it was their first release on a major record label, Lava Records. It was very well received critically and commercially, with it often being considered the band's crowning achievement, and selling three times as many copies as any of the band's earlier albums.
Lightbulb Sun is the sixth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released in May 2000, and later reissued in 2008 on CD, DVD-A surround sound, and vinyl.
Stupid Dream is the fifth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree. It was first released in March 1999, and then re-released on 15 May 2006 due to the band's rising popularity on major record label Lava Records with their releases of In Absentia in 2002 and Deadwing in 2005. The album, along with Lightbulb Sun in 2000, represented a transitional period for the band, moving away from the band's earlier work in instrumental and psychedelic music, but before they took a more metal direction in 2002 onwards. The album takes a commercially accessible pop rock sound while still retaining heavy progressive rock influences.
The Sky Moves Sideways is the third studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released on 30 January 1995. It was their first album to be release in the US.
Rockpalast is a live album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, named after the eponymous music festival and TV show, it was recorded at on 19 November 2005 at the Live Music Hall in Cologne, Germany. It was also filmed for a Rockpalast TV special, but not all songs made the broadcast. It is only available to download on the band's official website, and cannot be purchased in stores. The performance relies almost entirely on Deadwing and In Absentia material, with only one older song making the set list. The performances of "Futile" and "Radioactive Toy" were later included as bonus material on the Arriving Somewhere... DVD.
Arriving Somewhere... is the first live performance DVD by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree. Disc one is a full show from the Deadwing tour filmed by "Studio M" with nine High Def cameras at Park West, Chicago on 11 and 12 October 2005, edited by Lasse Hoile, with the soundtrack mixed in stereo and 5.1 surround sound by Steven Wilson, and mastered by Darcy Proper. Disc two includes live performances on the German television show Rockpalast, a promotional video for "Lazarus", the live films used as the backdrop for three songs, Gavin Harrison's "Cymbal Song", and a photo gallery with over 100 images. The soundtrack to the DVD is available in FLAC and MP3 formats from the band's download store since April 2007. This audio edition is in the top 10 of the "Top Albums of 2007" chart of Rate Your Music website. The DVD was re-released under Kscope record label on 21 April 2008 the same day of the regular release for the DVD-A edition of Lightbulb Sun. In March 2018, Blu-ray and 2CD set was released.
Blackfield is a collaborative music project by the English musician and founder of Porcupine Tree, Steven Wilson, and Israeli rock musician Aviv Geffen. Together, six albums have been released under the moniker. The first two records, Blackfield and Blackfield II, saw Geffen and Wilson working together as equal partners, while the third and fourth, Welcome to my DNA and Blackfield IV, saw Geffen take on a leading role, writing all but one track across both albums and providing a significantly increased share of lead vocals. Despite initially announcing his intention to leave the project in 2014, Wilson instead worked again as an equal partner on a fifth album, Blackfield V, which was released on 10 February 2017. A sixth record, For the Music, was released on 4 December 2020, with Geffen again taking a leading role.
Fear of a Blank Planet is the ninth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree and their best selling before 2009's The Incident. It was released on 16 April 2007 in the UK and the rest of Europe by Roadrunner, 24 April 2007 in the United States by Atlantic, 25 April 2007 in Japan by WHD, and 1 May 2007 in Canada by WEA. Steven Wilson has mentioned that the album's title is a direct reference to the 1990 Public Enemy album Fear of a Black Planet; while the former tackled race issues, the latter is about the fear of losing the current generation of youth to various common threats to their mental and social wellbeing, including broken homes, excessive "screen time", and narcotic overuse to the point of mental and spiritual "blankness".
"Shesmovedon" is a single by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, released in July 2000, from the Lightbulb Sun album. It came in three forms: a regular CD, a limited-version CD and a 7" vinyl. The single reached #4 in the NME independent chart in its first week of release.
The following is a listing of officially released works by the English band Porcupine Tree. The band has released eleven major studio albums and 7 EPs, as well as many limited editions and revamped material.
Nil Recurring is an EP by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, released on 17 September 2007 through the band's online store. The standard version of the mini-album is composed of four tracks written during the Fear of a Blank Planet recording sessions and was completed over the summer of 2007. The EP's title, which stems from the opening instrumental track on the EP, was actually derived from an unreleased demo written during the Fear of a Blank Planet recording sessions, called "Always Recurring". Although the band never formally released the song, lyrical and melodic elements of the track were reused in the closing piece of the EP, "What Happens Now?".
"Way Out of Here" is a song by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, and the fifth track from their ninth studio album, Fear of a Blank Planet. It is remarkable for being the only full-band composition of the record. A promo two-track single was released by Roadrunner Records intended for radio airplay. The record consists of the album version of the song and a radio edit, the same used for the promo videoclip, it comes housed in a cardboard sleeve with unique artwork.
"Shallow" is a song by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, released in 2005 as the first single from the Deadwing album.
The Incident is the tenth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree. It was released as a double album on 14 September 2009 by Roadrunner Records. The record was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album and reached the Top 25 on both the US and UK album charts. It was the final release to feature Colin Edwin on bass as well as the last one from the band before an extended hiatus that lasted until 2021.
Anesthetize is the second live concert film by progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, released on 20 May 2010. The Blu-ray edition was released on 15 June. It is filmed in high definition and taken from two concerts given by Porcupine Tree at Tilburg, Netherlands on 15 and 16 October, at the end of the Fear of a Blank Planet tour in 2008. The film is directed and edited by Lasse Hoile and the audio track is mixed in stereo and 5.1 Surround by Steven Wilson.
Storm Corrosion was a musical collaboration between Swedish musician Mikael Åkerfeldt of progressive metal band Opeth and English musician Steven Wilson of the progressive rock band Porcupine Tree. Åkerfeldt and Wilson began a longstanding musical partnership in 2001 when Wilson produced Opeth's fifth studio album Blackwater Park. The two began writing together for a new project in 2010, releasing their self-titled only studio album in 2012 through Roadrunner Records.
"Harridan" is a song by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released on 1 November 2021 as the lead single for the bands eleventh studio album Closure/Continuation. Upon release, it became the first new music by the band in nearly 12 years, with the last album being released in 2009. Several critics called the track a fitting comeback for the band after their long hiatus.
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