Classic Rock Bottom

by "album of the year" Scott

Steven Wilson is a big name around here, what with all that Raven stuff, a #1 CRB album in 2015, Porcupine Tree, and all those accolades and awards for his remix/Dolby/sound engineering skills.  So what does someone this prolific do during his downtime?  He releases an EP of course, a 37 minute long EP.  Some bands can barely get full albums recorded at this length!  So it would seem easy to qualify this to be in the running for CRB album of the year, but NO!  There are some around here who think otherwise.  So we'll have to settle for EP of the year, which it will easily win.  For now?  Click the album cover and enjoy these full length previews...


  1. My Book of Regrets (9:36)
  2. Happiness III (4:32)
  3. Vermillioncore (5:14)

Heres what AllMusic.com has to say about it...


Steven Wilson's 4½ is a six-track stopgap mini album between 2015's Hand. Cannot. Erase. and whatever full-length comes next. Four tunes have origins in the previous album's sessions; another dates back to those from 2013's The Raven That Refused to Sing and Other Stories. There is also a re-recording of "Don't Hate Me" that first appeared on Porcupine Tree's 1998 offering, Stupid Dream. The players are by now familiar: Wilson's current working band comprises Guthrie Govan, Adam Holzman, Nick Beggs, Dave Kilminster, Craig Blundell, Marco Minnemann, Chad Wackerman, and Theo Travis. Opener "My Book of Regrets" is a nine-plus-minute exercise that commences with a seductive pop melody, and offers a hooky chorus and syncopated dynamics. It evolves into spiraling prog rock courtesy of Beggs' front-line Chris Squire-esque bassline, fueling Govan and Wilson's spiky (yet sharply contrasting) guitar breaks and Holzman's atmospheric synth and electric piano work. "Happiness III" clocks in at less that five minutes and is almost a straight-up rocker with an anthemic, lushly layered backing chorus and charging guitar vamps. Half these cuts are instrumentals. While "Year of the Plague" comes off as a merely pleasant soundtrack-esque interlude, "Sunday Rain Sets In" starts as a Pink Floyd-ish exercise in serial atmospheres, but Holzman's post-bop piano, followed by angular, aggressive electric guitar pathos -- worthy of King Crimson -- at the close, transforms it into something more satisfying. "Vermillioncore" is even more diverse: it moves through everything from funky jazz-rock noir to knotty, searing prog metal in just over five minutes. The closing redo of "Don't Hate Me" -- even longer than PT's -- is denser and covers more ground musically. Ninet Tayeb's passionate duet vocal adds cinematic drama as well as emotional resonance; a blazing Travis tenor solo (instead of the lilting flute on the original) inspires the rhythm section to fire on all cylinders. Minimal Eastern modalism claims the center of the mix before it sets the stage for a rockist climax. As an entry in Wilson's catalog, 4½ comes off as a fully considered EP, although leaving off "Year of the Plague" would have made it stronger. His obsessive attention to detail is everywhere in the production, but more than that, most of this provides fans with another fantastic showcase for his amazing band, excellent writing, and fine arranging.

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4 1/2--Thumbs Up

Sadly, this can't be in album of the year or even an EP of the year, if such a thing existed. Why? Because it's leftover tracks plus a re-recording of another track. That's like taking a bonus disc of "previously unheard" material and submitting it as an AOTW. This is just a stopgap release, with a majority of the songs leftovers from previous albums. But, it is very good since it's Steven F'n Wilson, so you guys can fight over it as much as you want.

It's almost like someone posting an album by Mark Bolan in NMC, even though that album came out 60 years before.

Oops.

Almost forgot this:

Happily, someone who has a man-crush on Stevie agrees that this is ineligible for AOTY.  

So you two agree on something?

Can you believe it?

My Book Of Regrets - I'm gonna say that, based on the title and the feel of the song, this was a leftover from Hand.  Too bad, this is easily better, and I'd say more interesting than anything (with the possible exception of the first two songs) on Hand.  It's a tad more aggressive.  The bass work is out of this world.

Happiness III - What leftovers does this come from?  Another very cool song.  And it's under five minutes, a definite plus. At the beginning, just under a minute in, he says "ahhhhhhhh", sounds like Robin Zander would on a CT song.  I like the way this song moves along.  It's really a quite cool little power pop tune.

Vermillioncore - Is this the Doors?  Sounds a lot like Riders On The Storm.  Other than that, it just seems to be an average instrumental.  Not a bad one, just nothing great.

Overall, this isn't bad at all.  Not the first bit boring.  He really should have put those first two songs on Hand.  That might have been enough to propel it into the top album slot as opposed to sloppy second.  I could definitely see myself listening to this over Hand any day of the week, but I think my support of Mr. Wilson is over.  That won't matter to him though, he still has at least 3 devoted fans around here that will buy anything he records (not that there is anything at all wrong with that).  

I'm not impressed at all.

It sounds exactly like what it is: An EP of outakes, that rightfully shouldn't had been on the two latest exellent SW-albums.

IMO too much intrumental stuff on this release. Some of it good, but mostly a bit boring.

The best track is "Don't Hate Me".

I don't say, he shouldn't had released this, but I won't be among those who claims, that whatever Wilson releases, it's pure gold, because it's not. I'll probably listen 3-4 times, at the most, and then never again.

You bet! I'm no "fan-boy", or whatever "you people" call it.

BTW, I'm done listening to the whole of the new Dream Theater-album. It doesn't get any better.

It has it moments, and I'll probably give it "another spin", or mayby I should just listen to the "Frozen"-soundtrack instead?!!

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