STEVEN WILSON - The Overview

The prog heterodoxy of Steven Wilson is one of the most discussed and interesting chapters in contemporary rock music. A skilled restorer of landmark works from the 70s and 80s scene (from Jethro Tull to King Crimson, from Yes to Xtc, from Tears For Fears to Ultravox), a musician firmly rooted in technological avant-garde, and leader of one of the few neo-prog acts to win over a cross-generational audience (Porcupine Tree), the English composer remains faithful to an approach to album-making that has otherwise fallen out of fashion.

Yet another concept album, "The Overview" marks his return to progressive, with two suites that take up the two sides of the record, both conceived as the soundtrack to a visual-art installation narrating the emotions of an astronaut gazing at a now-distant Earth, an almost philosophical paradigm about scaling down the human figure in the face of nature. The project, coordinated with the Space Rocks organization, is also backed by a 42-minute video that doesn't appear in the various deluxe editions, which instead include Blu-ray Audio, colored vinyl and two bonus tracks lasting 60 and 23 minutes respectively (the first, "The Alterview", is entirely unreleased material, while the second is an orchestral version of one of the two suites, "Object Outlive Us").

Steven Wilson belongs to that current of musicians who built a prog-rock vision within the new wave scene, boldly and courageously reshaping its tenets, tapping into the darkness of post-rock on "Insurgentes" and challenging synth-pop's supposed vacuousness with the brilliant art-pop of "The Future Bites". "The Overview" puts more organic sounds back at the center of attention: Adam Holzman's keyboards, drummer Craig Blundell's rhythmic ease, guitarist Randy McStine's David Gilmour-like touch, and Wilson's impressive falsetto are more than enough to celebrate "Object Outlive Us" as one of the British artist's most complex and complete compositions. It's a piece divided into eight movements spanning over sixty years of rock languages — from prog to pop, from new wave to hard rock, from drone music to post-rock — with lyrics by Xtc's Andy Partridge as the icing on the cake.

The demands of narrative are a source of both delight and torment: the eight chapters of "Object Outlive Us" are packed with ideas, from the goth-prog choirs that open the suite, to the "Bohemian Rhapsody"-style choral passage that kicks things off by introducing one of the standout moments ("Objects: Meanwhile"), a track where the powerful imagery of everyday life crafted by Andy Partridge's skillful hand flows through. The rest of the first suite is a succession of hard-rock surges, Pink Floyd-esque echoes and post-rock flashes that don't shy away from electronics and drone music: the effect is a brilliant mix of Jethro Tull's "Thick As A Brick" and Pink Floyd's "Animals".

Wilson shows even more confidence and daring on the second suite, which gives the album its title, further expanding the scope and pulling off an interesting reverse journey, starting from Warp-style electronic atmospheres that flow into the section most akin to Porcupine Tree, before rewinding through a string of possible references, throwing cosmic-country hallucinations and metal subtleties into the bizarre mix, tying together all the threads of a story whose protagonists are man and space, with inevitable nods to "The Dark Side Of The Moon".

"The Overview" proves to be a relevant work more for its potential interactions with other fields, scientific and cinematic, than for its strictly musical ones - which are nonetheless highly commendable for their polished, never pompous prog structure that will appeal to die-hard fans as well as to younger audiences. Unfortunately, the music is at times too functional to the visual support, and the harmonic fabric is in places frayed, perpetually balanced between aesthetic elegance and predictability; but the fate of "The Overview" is full of twists and variables, and its media and critical impact will undoubtedly prove more powerful than the project itself. What Steven Wilson's new album certainly doesn't lack is intelligence and imagination, along with a touch of recklessness that, here too, helps keep attention firmly fixed.

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12/03/2025