No tags yet.
I opted to do something different because of how lengthy the PT reviews have turned out. Namely, I just want to get them out of the way. So I'll do them first and then do the rest of Steven Wilson's projects in chronological order.
So we’ve finally reached it—the greatest album that Porcupine Tree ever recorded. Fittingly, this album sits at a crossroads between the Signify-Lighbulb Sun era and everything that would come after this—there are the lush and haunting melodies of the latter as well as the heavy metal guitar that marks the latter. However, the presence of metal guitar riffs on In Absentia should not deter listeners who aren’t too fond of metal. The only crushingly-heavy riffs appear in “Blackest Eyes” (in that case, the opening riff), “Gravity Eyelids” (the middle part), “Wedding Nails” (most of the song), “The Creator Had A Mastertape,” and “Strip The Soul.” So 5 out of 12 tracks. While there are heavy guitar parts in other songs, they’re not as abrasive as those mentioned. Even during these passages, every note of every instrument is able to be heard with complete clarity—Steven Wilson’s production really brings out every nuance of sound with this album.
The last detail on the instruments is that In Absentia has a line-up change—drummer Chris Maitland has been replaced by Gavin Harrison. While Chris certainly had his moments during his tenure as Porcupine Tree’s drummer, Gavin is considered the greatest drummer that Steven has ever worked with…and for good reason. That reason is that Gavin marries the feel of a drummer like Steward Copeland with the technical precision of someone like Neil Peart. In fact, Gavin’s the member of the band who most frequently exhibits his prowess on his respective instrument—and he makes it feel like a natural part of the song every single time.
As mentioned before, this is a concept album loosely centered around a serial killer, starting with an innocent childhood (“Trains”) and descending into murderous madness that reaches a horrific conclusion in “The Creator Has a Mastertape”/“Heartattack In A Layby”/“Strip The Soul.” What I haven’t related until now is that Steven apparently drew parallels between the killer in In Absentia and those of infamous English serial killer Fred West. Given that a read-through of the horrifying shit the Fred West did (rape, torture, mutilation, murder of children (including his own), burying the corpses in the cellar/garden of the home, physical and sexual abuse of his wife and kids, bestiality, necrophilia, and much more), this is undoubtedly the darkest album in the Porcupine Tree discography. Not only because of the lyrical content, but also due to how the music becomes as unsettling as the events that unfold. Additionally, many of these lyrics are vague enough for the listener to guess at how fucked up they truly are—they are just within arm’s reach much of the time.
I will be analyzing every nook and cranny of the lyrics of this album and how the music compliments it eerily well. In In Absentia, Steven Wilson captures the mindset of a serial killer with disturbing precision.
“Blackest Eyes” (4:23)
The opening track of In Absentia—“Blackest Eyes”—contains an opening riff which has become one of the best-regarded in progressive metal. It’s a riff that comes in two parts. The first being a rapidly-descending set three power chords on the lowest-two strings. The second has palm-muted single notes on one string and tri-tone sustains being picked on a higher string. It’s a riff that announces right out-of-the-gate that Porcupine Tree had adopted metal into their bag of tools—and that they weren’t playing around. It’s also a riff that carries a forward momentum that keeps the listener wondering what happens next, making “Blackest Eyes” an ideal opening track for the album.
Lyrically, “Blackest Eyes” isn’t the beginning of the album’s story. Instead, the song acts as an overview to the whole concept—with lyrics alluding to various parts of the other songs on the album. Of course, a first listen of In Absentia would mean that all those allusions end up being lost on a listener. But on a second-time through, those allusions are crystal-clear.
But the first verse offers something different:
A mother sings a lullaby to a child
Sometime in the future the boy goes wild
And all his nerves are feeling some kind of energy.
As an overview of the whole concept, it should make sense that “Blackest Eyes” start at the beginning. And childhood is a beginning. However, there’s more to these lyrics. For instance, “Sometime in the future the boy goes wild” entails that these lines are from the perspective of a third-person omniscient narrator who knows how this story will end up. An irony of that comes from the fact that the “mother” from the first line doesn’t know that her “child” will end up being a serial killer.
The knowledge of this omniscient narrator is limited because of “Sometime,” a word exhibiting a lack of specifics. This lack of specificity regarding when “the boy goes wild” facilitates a question that permits multiple readings of In Absentia: “At what point of the album does the killer cross the moral event horizon?” As for when I think he does, I’ll address that in a few tracks down the road.
Regarding “And all his nerves are feeling some kind of energy,” that’s a line which indicates the genesis of the form of inner tension that’ll eventually drive the future killer to kill. At this point, it’d be wise to consider that Steven’s interest in characters such as serial killers doesn’t hinge on their actions. Instead it centers on wondering why they were twisted to begin with. That this line suggests (in this singular instance) it to be innate ends up linking to the album title: Latin for “in absence.” This person may look and be a human being (and contain a shred of humanity), but the propensity for evil stands true because our nameless killer (or ONK, as I’ll refer to the In Absentia killer going forward) can’t feel or think like a human being.
The second verse has the same musical foundation as the first, so here’s the lyrics:
A walk in the woods and I will try
Something under the trees that made you cry.
It’s so erotic when your make-up runs.
The shift of pronouns from the first verse to the second indicates that perspective has changed—it’s now the present-day and these lines are straight from ONK. But as for the lyrics themselves, they present the first instance of many that ONK’s presented as a sexual deviant. That much is clear from the menacing tone of the backing vocal that echoes “when your make-up runs.” That same backing vocal also makes it clear that what ONK’s trying to rape a woman under the trees.
This is the first glimpse of ONK on the entire album and that Steven put an instance of rape shows a lot about how much of a sick bastard ONK is. The crying—to a first-time listener unaware of “Blackest Eyes” being a prologue to a concept album about a serial killer—could be seen as stemming from a loss of virginity. However, context makes it so that these tears are linked to the trauma associated with being raped. But here’s the messed-up thing: ONK finds beauty and pleasure in the act of sexual assault. Such a thing points to sociopathy in that he’s unable to tell the difference between right or wrong or of the difference between tears shed out of joy or out of despair. All this is surface-level detail compared to the deep dives into how this monster operates in two of the later tracks (“Lips of Ashes” and “Gravity Eyelids”).
One way all of this coheres with the previous verse is that the first verse implied ONK to be a horrific person because of a lack of something. The actions and justifications used in the second verse reveal that what ONK lacks is empathy—he’s an outright sociopath.
The lyrics of the chorus deserve a look:
I got wiring loose inside my head.
I got books that I never ever read.
I got secrets in my garden shed.
I got a scar where all my urges bled.
I got people underneath my bed.
I got a place where all my dreams are dead.
The pronouns make it clear that the chorus is straight from ONK’s mouth. However, it’s probably at a different point in time than the second verse because some of what he mentions happens in later songs on the album. For that reason, the chorus needs to be broken down line-by-line. It’s a puzzle in which every line foreshadows future elements of the album, with several songs having thematic echoes to parts of it.
That ONK stars us out with “I got wiring loose inside my head./I got books that I never ever read” isn’t insignificant. On one level, you can read that as ONK not being very bright since he’s got a massive library of books that he’s never touched. However, one can also read that as him having no time in his life because of everything he mentions in the subsequent lines. As for the loose wiring, that entails aspects of insanity—reinforcing the sense of sociopathy as well as foreshadowing a concern of “Prodigal.”
For “I got secrets in my garden shed,” that’s a detail consistent with the Fred West story—the “secrets” in this line are dead bodies, but maybe not in a literal manner just yet. Another early song (“Lips of Ashes”) paints ONK as obsessing over dead bodies, but haven’t killed someone yet. That would also mean that ONK’s well on his way into committing his first murder. That the “secrets” in this line can be read as ONK napping and having a wet dream about dead bodies in his garden shed shows that whole image as symbolic of all of ONK’s/Fred West’s depraved sexual fetishes. Those fetishes are indeed the “scar” mentioned in “I got a scar where all my urges bled.” As for one of those urges, “I got people underneath my bed” being literal refers to one of them: necrophilia. And ONK goes up there—to the “place where all my dreams are dead”—as a form of escapism. That escapism makes sense when one considers that necrophilia would entail one person’s total control over the other—a corpse can’t fight back/resist. The escapist element of ONK with necrophilia is an ultimate expression of power.
The last line of the chorus—delivered in a breathtakingly-ethereal multi-tracked harmony (probably with a bunch of reverb)—warrants a look:
Swim with me into your blackest eyes.
In an abstract sense, ONK is just as dead as the corpse he’s violating. While that corpse is externally dead, ONK’s dead on the inside. To give a visual cue, this line pertains to the album cover. On that album cover, take a note that the man on the front has no pupils and that the frozen-white skin tone is devoid of life. Both are deliberate and mirror how lifeless ONK is.
As for the lyrics to the third verse, they bear elaboration:
A few minutes with me inside my van
Should be so beautiful if we can.
I’m feeling something taking over me.
Again, “my” and “I’m” involve that these lines are from ONK’s perspective. Aside from that, “A few minutes with me inside my van” acts as a form of deceit used to pick up a victim. Disturbingly, the detail of a van reflects something from the Fred West case. Namely, the fact that him and his wife frequently tied up, beat, and raped their 13-year-old daughter in the back of a van (I told you that the Fred West story makes me squirm). I’m not saying that this line’s an allusion to that particular part of the Fred West case, but the fact that ONK shares striking similarities to Fred West (especially in “Strip The Soul”) does leave the possibility open.
For ONK to say that an act of rape “Should be so beautiful if we can” speaks volumes about how fucked-up he is. The most important thing is that “beautiful” only applies to him, linking back to the second verse’s discovery of ONK finding pleasure and beauty in the act of committing rape—it’s a form of sadism for this bastard. Such a notion also entails that this is a day in the life for ONK—he’s completely normalized to this.
As for “I’m feeling something taking over me,” that can be read as a cop-out or an acknowledgement of horrific urges. It almost begs us to ask what the difference between a fetish and this is, but the answer to that can already be ascertained from “Blackest Eyes” alone—the sociopathy associated with the previous verses.
As for the music which surrounds these lyrics, “Blackest Eyes” starts in a calm manner via the light plucking of two notes on an acoustic guitar from Steven. However, the build-up of synths from Richard is enough to indicate that things aren’t going to stay this way. Sure enough, things explode when the first electric guitar riff arrives (at about 0:27)—a pummeling riff that consists of two parts. The first part is the counterpoint that’s comprised of three notes in descending pitch—the first two of those notes being power chords. This results in a rough but propulsive sound that’s as bestial as the actions which Steven later depicts in the lyrics. The second part of the riff has sustains moving down the chromatic scale which are offset by rhythmic pluckings of the palm-muted open E-string.
This entire riff sounds fearsome and signals that In Absentia presents a side of Porcupine Tree (heavy metal) which was seldom explored before 2002. That fearsome quality is aided by having the riff shared by Colin’s bass guitar—making it so that bass blends into the guitar but also reinforcing the heaviness of the core riff. Additionally, Gavin’s drumming provides a bedrock of snare, kick-pedal, and ride cymbal (with the occasional tom) during the second part of the riff while the first part allows Gavin the opportunity for some devastating fills involving snares, toms, cymbals, kick pedal, and flams (hard, simultaneous hits on a snare and a tom).
This riff doesn’t last forever because at around 0:49, another riff comes about as a transition to the first verse. This transition riff (unlike the prior riff) operates in a 5/4 time signature, giving it an elongated feel. That elongated feel makes the jagged single-note sequences stand out as breaks from the suffocating aggression of the ascending sequence of chords. Gavin’s drumwork in this part proves more technically-demanding than the earlier riff to a careful ear—Gavin’s playing triplet rhythms with ghost snares (with the last of a set of three being accented) as the main rhythm.
All of that leads to an abrupt break at about 0:58. But instead of launching into an even heavier riff, the song offers a respite by going into a 4/4 verse led by some lush acoustic guitar—punctuated by emphatic sustains on electric guitar. Colin mainly functions as backing for Steven’s acoustic guitar. However, Gavin doesn’t let up on his playing—he merely shifts focus to a hi-hat/snare/kick-pedal rhythm that still provides him room for ghost snares (which are easier to hear in a quieter section like this). Steven’s delivery of these lyrics is lush and pulls a trick—lulling the listener into ONK’s depraved state-of-mind.
The song’s chorus (first appearing at around 1:40 proves just as propulsive as the opening riff—albeit not as crushingly-heavy. Here, Steven’s guitar shifts from acoustic to electric in a Dylan-esque fashion while Colin starts to deviate from the pattern slightly (although bass isn’t the easiest to hear in the mix). Gavin’s not so reliant on fills, but delivers a steady ride-cymbal/snare/kick-pedal rhythm that occasionally switches to crash-cymbal to start a new measure. Steven’s lyrics are uttered in a rapid-fire manner apart from “Swim with me into your blackest eyes,” which has multi-tracked choral harmonies that sound haunted and ethereal. Given the focus on In Absentia regarding ONK being dead on the inside, the ethereal tone of that line’s harmonies informs the listener of a common conundrum across the whole album.
Following the first chorus, an odd little riff appears at about 2:00. This riff sounds as if it were played simultaneously on acoustic and electric guitar, leaving the listener slightly disoriented as to which takes precedence. Additionally, Colin’s bass plays a more sustain-based variant on a similar rhythm. Gavin mostly sticks to the same rhythmic pattern as in the first chorus. This seamlessly segues into the second verse, near-identical to that of the first. But one difference presents itself to the listener almost immediately: the presence of an added layer of guitar which plays more high-pitched notes. Also, Richard can be heard on piano during this verse.
While the second chorus is mostly the same as that of the first, the ending of it jumps back to the intro riff just as Steven says “eyes.” But after two rounds of the familiar riff, something else happens—an electric variant of the acoustic riff of the calm intro (broken up by the first part of the electric riff in the intro). Colin—like much of this song—doubles this rhythmic guitar riff. Gavin does offer the simplest part of the song drum-wise in that there’s no deviation from the rigid lock-step rhythm he lays down here. At least not until around 3:17, where the song cuts off.
Except for Richard;s organ chords that act as a prelude for the third chorus. Yes, Steven still offers the same menacing sentiments which comprise the other two choruses. But the lack of any instrumentation save for sustains from Colin and Richard allows Steven’s voice to serve as that of a charmer. But then Gavin unleashes a snare roll at about 3:55 which segues into the outro. Which, in turn, reprises the electric riffs of the intro.
There is definitely a type of kinetic energy which runs throughout “Blackest Eyes” that almost makes it so that the listener has to see where the album’s headed next. Fortunately, it’s headed in a very good place.
“Trains” (5:56)
A song that occupies a notable place in Porcupine Tree’s catalog, “Trains” has a sound to it which (in a perfect world) would put it in the same breath as classic songs of ages prior. In fact, this is likely to be the first song from this band that one hears—some would even call “Trains” the band’s signature song. That doesn’t make “Trains” a sell-out song. In fact, “Trains” displays everything that makes Steven Wilson such a brilliant songwriter in the span of six minutes—which end up feeling like four because of the how well the song captivates the listener’s attention at every turn. Even staunch die-hard Steven Wilson fans admit that this is one of the greatest songs the man has ever written.
Although this song isn’t an epic-length song, the level of detail in the music itself and how it informs the meaning of the lyrics applies to “Trains.” Just as it did with “Even Less” and just as it will with “Arriving Somewhere But Not Here” and “Anesthetize” in the albums to come.
The first instrument heard when one starts up “Trains” is an acoustic guitar playing the song’s primary riff pattern. The pattern itself—a quick bit of rhythm and then a slower one—keeps the song in constant movement; the song hardly ever feels like it slows down. This acoustic pattern forms the foundation for an otherwise-unaccompanied first-verse:
Train set and match spied under the blind.
Shiny and contoured, the railway winds.
And I’ve heard the sound from my cousin’s bed.
The hiss of the train at the railway head.
The very first word—train—touches upon a recurring symbol throughout the music of Steven Wilson. Just a look at how many times the image appears gives you “Pure Narcotic,” “Don’t Hate Me,” “Deadwing,” “Lazarus,” “Way Out of Here,” “Sentimental,” and “Happy Returns.” However, each usage of that image presents it as a symbol of movement towards the future—presented as a constant motion.
As for the lines themselves, “Trains” has several lines are rich in meaning. The second line—“Shiny and contoured, the railway winds”—being a good example. If the train itself marks movement towards the future, then the rails are the path. As for the winding, that’s a contrast with “shiny and contoured”—a contrast which demands the context of In Absentia to piece together. “Trains” fits into the concept of In Absentia in that it’s the very beginning of the story—the boy in the song may grow up to be ONK, but in “Trains,” he’s a little kid. As for how that relates to “Shiny and contoured, the railway winds,” the former would indicate a bright future while the latter suggests unexpected circumstances. To put it this way, the ‘absence’ entailed by the album’s title was not something that this boy deliberately set out for—it was internal and facilitated every atrocity that ONK commits throughout In Absentia. So that second line indicates the entire arc of the album, a detail which I noticed only after having listened to this album close to twenty times.
The lines which follow it—“And I’ve heard the sound from my cousin’s bed./The hiss of the train at the railway head”—raise questions. Questions that pertain to where the speaker is and what is the relationship between him and his cousin (later lines state the cousin’s a girl). While the song offers greater clarity on the cousin later on, there are some lingering questions (something I’ll get to upon reaching later lines). As for the hissing of the train, that’s another image of the future coming along—whether one wants it or not, a detail which creates a thematic link to the refrain.
A new acoustic guitar pattern complements the refrain (at around 0:54), which consists of chords that the later reprise will use on an electric guitar. As for the refrain itself, it’s the closest thing that “Trains” has to a chorus:
Always the summers are slipping away.
This first usage of the refrain involves only one of the two lines (the second will be used later on). But Steven’s delivery of this initial refrain stands out—it’s a falsetto tone that sounds both heavenly and pained. As for what it means, it’s a yearning for summer to last longer. This ties into the time-progression symbolism of the train. One can read a mournful feeling to this, but not overwhelming enough to prevent “Trains” from being uplifting.
But that uplifting feeling proves ephemeral since the song simmers back down (at about 1:05) to the intro acoustic pattern. However, you can feel some of Richard’s synths building up—this can’t last forever. Sure enough, “Trains” shifts (at around 1:11) from acoustic to electric in a Bob Dylan-esque manner. Steven’s electric guitar plays the same pattern which acoustic guitar played in the intro. Complementing this is Colin’s bass part—simpler than usual, but emphatic on the core rhythm which the electric guitar already set the foundation. Gavin adds to the rhythmic center with an array of snares, cymbals, and kick-pedals which place special emphasis on beats which are mirrored by Steven and Colin, but he still finds room for the occasional ghost note on the snare. As for Steven’s singing, his delivery of “blur” has always given me chills at how good it sounds.
The second verse has a bit to chew on:
A sixty-ton angel falls to the earth.
A pile of old metal, a radiant blur.
Scars in the country, the summer and her.
The first (and the least exciting) line—“A sixty-ton angel falls to the earth”—is merely a poetic description of the train itself. Nothing more, regardless of how some have tried to think the “sixty-ton angel” is a 9/11 reference (which doesn’t add up in context). However, sixty tons sounds like a reasonable estimate for the weight of a train. This line and the next one—“A pile of old metal, a radiant blur”—do raise questions as to whether the train still exists. For all we know, it could be scrap and the “radiant blur” is how the boy remembers the action of a train pulling out of the station.
That last bit—“Scars in the country, the summer and her”—is where things get interesting. To clear the elephant out of the room, “her” is the boy’s cousin. But the meat of this line lies in what the “Scars in the country” are. This is because that phrase works on a literal and a metaphorical level.
On a literal level, “Scars in the country” are the shapes of railroad tracks. And that image also works when one considers the industrial procedure used to put those railroad tracks into place.
On a metaphorical level, “Scars in the country” links to the concept of nostalgia. This would mean that “the country” is memory itself. However, “scars” (in this context) are all the traumas in his life which he wishes he could undo but can’t. Heck, even an image of a human brain can lead one to assume that the grooves in it resemble a set of railroad tracks. Or at least what they’d look like from high in the sky. In which case, the metaphorical and the literal levels work simultaneously.
The juxtaposition entailed by “The summer and her” means that this person (his cousin) is why the boy loves summer. On its own, the concept of spending time with family in the summer isn’t a disturbing implication. But later lines make this not-so-innocent.
The second use of the refrain (appearing on : ) may use identical (apart from being on electric instead of acoustic) guitar chords, but the presence of a full band imbues it with a sense of forward momentum. For instance, Colin’s bassline in this section may be simple, but the rhythmic emphasis adds to the sense that the song’s an extended crescendo to an inevitable conclusion. As for Gavin, while his rhythmic pattern remains largely the same as before, it also alters slightly in emphatic swipes at cymbals apart from the ride-cymbal.
The refrain (delivered in the same tone as before) is now expanded. The first line means the same as earlier, but the second line:
Find me a way for making it stay.
This phrasing—“Find me a way for making it stay”—serves to heighten just how desperate that this boy is at this point. The boy doesn’t know, can never know, and still yearns for a way to make the good times last forever. That doesn’t mean it’s a conclusion that the boy has to like, as the pained delivery which Steven uses for that line suggests. But that mythic quality of yearning is also supported by the larger-than-life sound of Richard’s orchestral synths, which bathe the entire refrain in tones that wouldn’t be out-of-place in the works of Romantics such as Percy Bysshe Shelly and John Keats. That the synths become more subdued in the section that follows indicates that the philosophy of yearning collides head-on with bitter reality and loses.
Immediately after this line, Steven breaks out into a guitar solo that’s one of the best he’s ever played. While it may be brief, the guitar solo in “Trains” captures the nostalgic sense of joy perfectly. The solo starts on the lower end of the strings and ends up going higher-and-higher. What Steven does with his strings here is nothing less than soar like a bird—a task aided by the rhythmic backing of Colin and Gavin. Fittingly, this nostalgic-sounding burst of joy embodied by the guitar solo comes at the last point where “Trains” can be considered innocent.
The last new lyrics of the song are the most cryptic in the entire song:
When I hear the engine pass, I’m kissing you wide.
The hissing subsides, I’m in luck.
When the evening reaches here, you’re tying me up.
I’m dying of love. It’s okay.
There are a number of ways of looking at these lines (which are multi-layered), but one of the most obvious involves the boy and his female cousin discovering sex for the first time as young kids—likely fooling around. I want to make this clear—both participants are under the age of consent. Ironically, aside from the legal status of age-of-consent, the lyrics suggest that this is the most ethically-upstanding act of sex that ONK engages in with the album. Given that this boy/ONK isn’t acting as the aggressor and if one reads “It’s okay” as a signal of consent from the boy to his cousin, this is the only instance of sex in In Absentia where ONK isn’t the rapist. Instead, “You’re tying me up” indicates that his cousin is the dominant player. As for “dying of love,” that’s a covert reference to a French phrase—le petit mort, or ‘a little death’—which is used as shorthand for an orgasm.
There’s a twisted irony in the fact that something as frowned-upon as underage incest represents (both lyrically and musically) one of the only happy moments on an album dominated by serial murder and sexual assault. However, that does play back into one of Steven’s hallmarks: upbeat or angelic-sounding music set to lyrics with disturbing connotations. Think back to Stupid Dream with a track like “This Is No Rehearsal.” However, this case turns that into something sublime—which is only heightened by the contrast in mood between this and a track from the end of the album (for instance “Strip The Soul”).
To reduce these lyrics and say that they’re only about sex would be incorrect. And the key to that is the continued presence of train-based imagery. A key phrase—“When I hear the engine pass”—gives us an idea of what point of childhood the boy and the cousin are at: where puberty is imminent, but hasn’t arrived yet. Both the train and the jump into sex mark a similar thing: the end of childhood memories. This cousin is someone who the boy’s close to (even without the sexual dimension) and this is a case where the summer’s just about over and the train’s going to take the boy back home. So for now, the boy is savoring the moments with the cousin because this could be the very last.
But these lines appear to exist in two points of time since “I’m in luck” creates a continuity snarl. The rest of these lines suggest that the sex is happening as the train’s pulling up, but “I’m in luck” implies that the train has been delayed. That snarl only allows the poignancy of the train metaphor to come across stronger and allows something amazing to happen in the music up ahead.
Following the end of those lines, the listener is greeted to a section of Queen-like vocal harmonies from Steven that are some of the most mesmerizing ones that he’s ever laid down. This section can easily be perceived as the audio equivalent of sexual ecstasy—both in how it sounds and in where it’s placed in the song. This also factors into the ‘crescendo of forward momentum’ which the entire song has built up towards in that this is what that has been leading up towards.
After the blissful harmony section simmers down, everything drops out except for a percussion loop and a banjo. The banjo plays in a stretch of serpentine notes for the entire interlude. This interlude feels like the transition and the passage of time between what’s come before and the state of mind that the boy feels at the last lines of the song—perhaps it occurs on the train itself. However, this interlude does go on for a long while (more than a minute), but various things keep one’s attention. Things such as the presence of added clean-toned guitar layers partway through and the way that the banjo pattern often shifts to a different rhythm.
Eventually, the banjo interlude ends, shifting the song to an acoustic version of the post-guitar solo rhythm. Complete with these familiar lyrics:
When I hear the engine pass, I’m kissing you wide.
The hissing subsides, I’m in luck.
When the evening reaches here, you’re tying me up.
I’m dying of love. It’s okay.
They don’t mean the same thing this time, though. The stripping down to an acoustic guitar, a percussion track, and intermittent keyboard from Richard entails a feeling of the wind being taken out of one’s sails. That feeling’s rather apt in that the passage of time entailed by the banjo interlude makes these lyrics read as the boy’s thoughts while on the train heading back. As for what the lines mean this time, it involves a sense of desensitization with the boy and he did discover one thing about him that holds true with the Fred West parallels: a fetish for being tied up and/or tying others up. That detail matters more to the overall story arc of In Absentia just as much as the loss of innocence entailed by the harmony section and much more than the fact that this was about sex with his cousin. Because of the propensity for tying others up for the rapes that ONK would commit in the future, the discovery of this fetish also functions as the first step down a road which ONK’s sociopathy enables him to descend further. This even has musical evidence when considering that the boy pre-banjo section and post-banjo section are two different people. This would give the banjo section an effect similar to the orchestral swell which pieces together John and Paul’s sections in “A Day In The Life” by The Beatles.
The song’s not quite done, nor are the lyrics. Despite the remaining lyrics being the “Always the summers are slipping away/Find me a way for making it stay” refrain, “Trains” remains interesting until the last moment. While the song returns to electric guitars at about 4:51, Steven plays a riff consisting of six notes (in the rhythm of the intro riff). This simple riff ends with a sustained note, marking a sense of longing for something that’s no longer possible.
As for the delivery of the refrain, that varies. At first, it’s angelic harmony akin to that of the intro. However, the building-up intensity of Gavin’s drumming (he plays a number of tricky fills here and operates in a rhythm that’s more frantic than the rest of the song) lends a sense of urgency to the refrain. But the way Steven delivers (only the first half of the refrain now) it towards the end carries a tone of resignation. That resignation comes from an inability to change the action which set him on the path to become ONK. A path which Gavin’s drums speed to fruition until the instruments (save for a percussion loop) crash out, leading to “Lips of Ashes”—solidifying the descent of ONK.
There are a large set of listeners who consider “Trains” to be the single-greatest song that Steven Wilson has ever written. While I think that that’s pushing it slightly, it’s still the greatest piece of music under the ten-minute mark that Porcupine Tree ever recorded. This one would be in my Top 5 Porcupine Tree songs without question, but it wouldn’t be number 1. Yes, this song is almost everything about the band distilled into six magical minutes…but the control exhibited in a couple of longer songs (which we haven’t seen yet) ends up trumping this all-time classic.
“Lips of Ashes” (4:39)
While “Lips of Ashes” is far from the last step in ONK’s descent, it marks ONK’s first step into the truly perverted. And by that, I mean it is something that I couldn’t justify even if I tried to. Additionally, this song sounds as ice-cold as “Trains” was full of life. That it comes directly after—and flows seamlessly from—“Trains” makes the contrast between the two jarring on a musical level.
As for what the song’s about, that takes a look at the lyrics. Fortunately, this one’s only seven lines long (the second fewest of any song from In Absentia), so there’s no reason not to look at this one in full:
Paralyzed, lips of ashes.
Synchronized, your blue vein crashes.
Touching, touching you inside
Idolized, black eyes fading.
You and I, connection failing.
I drill, I drill down inside.
To break this one down, “paralyzed” describes the state of the woman (which more than likely isn’t the cousin from “Trains”) in question, but not in a literal sense. “Drill” connotes the act of sexual intercourse, but lines such as “your blue vein crashes” and “black eyes failing” makes it known that our speaker is engaging in necrophilia. Additionally, words such as “Idolized” indicate that this is no different than the act of rape for him—it is an act of exerting power. Which is a curious detail because (in the chronological order of events) ONK has not raped a living person at this point. That fact alone can make the act of necrophilia function as a stepping stone for ONK.
Another thing to note about these lyrics is that—given the descent into madness that the speaker goes through over the course of the album (most notably on “Prodigal”)—they don’t mention the speaker actively murdering the woman in question. Just that he finds her dying and waits for her to expire so he can fuck the corpse.
Another distressing detail is that these lyrics are sung akin to a lullaby. As sandwiched between “Trains” (the happiest sounding song here and probably in the entire Porcupine Tree catalog) and “The Sound of Muzak,” this is still on the ‘lighter’ side of the album. I say that because musically, things will get much darker in the latter half of the album.
Musically, “Lips of Ashes” sounds cold—so much so that if I told an unacquainted listener that it came from Stupid Dream, someone would likely believe me. While one of the first things a listener hears in “Lips of Ashes” is the final hit of the percussion loop from “Trains,” there’s also the fading-in of the hammered dulcimer (previously found on several tracks from Lightbulb Sun)—an instrument whose ice-cold sound sharply contrasts with the warmth which the percussion loop originated from. Almost as if “Lips of Ashes” reinforces the continued decline of ONK’s morality.
After the hammered dulcimer goes unaccompanied for a bit, Steven’s acoustic guitar enters the scene (slowly fading in) with a simple ten-note finger-picked pattern. This pattern provides a vamp for the hammered dulcimer to solo for a bit. Additionally, 0:39 introduces some droning sustains on Steven’s electric guitar. But at around the minute mark, the hammered dulcimer’s left (along with the occasional flourish from Richard) to paint atmosphere as the verse starts. Meanwhile, acoustic guitar becomes the dominant instrument as Steven sings (sans harmony) the necrophilia-based lyrics in tones which wouldn’t seem out-of-place in a lullaby.
A marker at about 1:26 offers a shift of gears via a key change on the acoustic guitar. This is complimented by how Steven delivers the “Touching, touching you inside” line—harmonized and in a different set of notes than the previous verse. During this, some of Steven’s droning sustains are also discernible.
While the second verse/chorus unit are largely identical to the first, what follows (around 2:38) differs significantly. Steven emphatically sings “La” in various pitches and formations as the droning sustains gradually build-up into a full-fledged guitar solo. This entire time, acoustic guitar plays the familiar pattern as a rhythm guitar. At the same time, some flourishes of Richard’s synths are discernible in the distance. This shifts once the guitar solo starts properly at about 3:02, at which point Colin finally enters on bass—but with measure-long sustains.
As for the guitar solo itself, it’s a melodic one that has probably the most Gilmour-esque touches of any solo Steven’s done since The Sky Moves Sideways. In fact, it’s easily the most lively-sounding thing in “Lips of Ashes,” something which stands in marked contrast to the song’s subject matter. If the cold tone of how Steven delivered the verses marks the coldness of the corpse that ONK’s having sex with, then the lively solo marks the hot-blooded ecstasy that this sick experience makes ONK feel: joy.
After the guitar solo wraps up at around 4:14, the song ends in a fade-out. But during the fade-out, there’s an acoustic guitar being picked as well as something which sounds like something indeterminate being scratched.
While “Lips of Ashes” still sounds sublime in its creepiness, this song stands as one of the weaker tracks on In Absentia. Granted, that’s still pretty good—even if the fact that it’s about necrophilia makes one squirm.
“The Sound of Muzak” (4:59)
This is one song that, for the longest time, was unrelated to the concept that this album has. On the surface, it appears to be a completely-unrelated swipe at the state of the music industry (and a damn good one at that). But I got to thinking that there’s a mirror image to this—this song can serve a metaphor for ONK’s state-of-mind between the events of “Lips of Ashes” and “Gravity Eyelids.” Heck, the progression of his state-of-mind can be read as thus: ONK was music, but after this song ONK is muzak.
As for how the song sounds, “The Sound of Muzak” is—apart from “Blackest Eyes” and “Trains”—the most ‘single-ready’ song on In Absentia. Structure-wise, it’s an even more radio-friendly rock song than the other two. And unless you take leaps of faith in interpreting stuff (like me), you would think it’s just a diss at the music industry.
The first verse of the song reads:
Hear the sound of music drifting in the isles.
Elevator Prozac stretching on for miles.
The music of the future will not entertain.
It’s only meant to repress and neutralize your brain.
Like I said in the intro, “the sound of music” turning into muzak—or “Elevator Prozac”—reflect ONK’s state-of-mind and outline the progression of his decline. But the crucial bit of information in the interpretation comes from “The music of the future will not entertain./It’s only meant to repress and neutralize your brain.” In this case, it’s an acknowledgement that ONK will go truly and utterly insane. The events of the near-future will end up neutralizing ONK’s mind and leave him capable of thinking only about his perpetual obsessions—murder, rape, and dominion. At this point, “music” takes on a new meaning in regards to the song’s metaphor—it can also be the influence, experiences, and traumas which shape a person. In the case of a song like “Lips of Ashes,” the necrophilia desensitized ONK.
There’s a pre-chorus section that contains the following lines:
Soul gets squeezed out, edges get blunt.
Demographic gives what you want.
Carrying on the discussion regarding the desensitization that occurred in “Lips of Ashes,” the phrase “Soul gets squeezed out, edges get blunt” offers two synonyms for desensitization. The first is the soul—or the part of him which has any empathy—which can be seen from the desensitization in “Lips of Ashes.” When “Gravity Eyelids” rolls about as the very next track, the perverse sexuality exhibited by ONK devolve into blatant sex without feeling. Say what you will about the ethics of incest regarding “Trains,” but if one believes that incest is a part of that song, one cannot say that it was emotionless—the ecstasy of the harmonized section was proof of the joy expressed in that song. I’m not saying that that makes it right—just that the fact that we go from that to passionless sex in the span of three songs shows a rapid decline. And that decline only continues in the rest of “Gravity Eyelids.”
Admittedly, to tie “Demographic gives what you want” into my ‘music as metaphor of state-of-mind’ idea will be stretching it. But to do so requires referring back to “Blackest Eyes.” Specifically the “I’ve got wiring loose inside my head” line. What I’m getting at is that the insanity implied by that line of “Blackest Eyes” can involve multiple voices inside ONK’s conscience. Those multiple voices are the “Demographic” of ONK. They give him what he wants because they have to conform to what he does.
As for the chorus itself, that has quite a bit to break down in my ‘metaphor for killer’s state of mind’ theory:
One of the wonders of the world is going down.
It’s going down, I know.
It’s one of the blunders of the world, but no one cares.
No one cares enough.
To break this down fully, I’m going to have to spoil the usage of a metaphor on a later track: “The Creator Has A Mastertape.” In that track, the titular motif of a recording artist misplacing a tape of master-tracks which then grew corrupted is likened to the state of ONK at that point of the album. However, that track also suggests that a god (interesting since Steven’s an atheist) may have created life, but anything can go haywire.
In this context, humanity as a whole comprises “One of the wonders of the world.” However, the same is true of the humanity of an individual person. In this light, that that wonder of the world “is going down” marks both ONK’s mental decline and the stripping of his humanity. As for it being this being “one of the blunders of the world,” that’s suggests a belief that if people knew how to stop killers/rapists from ever killing/raping anyone, then people would do so. The problem with that is that there’s no guaranteed way to do so and there’s no guarantee that we’ll ever find a way to do so. The latter part relates to “no one cares” because it implicates human society—we think there will never be a way to end rape and murder in the world, so a large part of people believe it’s a lost cause and not worth trying to prevent.
This third verse has the last non-repeated lyrics of the song:
Now the sound of music comes in silver pills.
Engineered to suit you, building cheaper thrills.
The music of rebellion makes you wanna rage.
But it’s made by millionaires who are nearly twice your age.
This mention of “silver pills” comes across as a particularly ominous bit of foreshadowing. This is because two different songs in the latter half of the album involve ONK killing people via pills. As for “Engineered to suit you,” that’s a reference to how pills themselves are synthetically made. But “building cheaper thrills” is perhaps the most indicative of ONK’s state-of-mind. By describing the act of murder as a ‘cheap thrill,’ that all but states that the brutality of ONK’s murder methods are only going to escalate the more he kills.
As for “The music of rebellion makes you wanna rage/But it’s made by millionaires who are nearly twice your age,” that’s the one line of the song where I feel that the song being about the killer falls flat. That being said, the phrase is the most cutting one out of any of Steven’s swipes against the music industry. So I have no problem with being completely wrong there.
Regarding the music of “The Sound of Muzak,” the verses are in 7/4, which give the verses a meandering feel to them. These verses are also devoid of bass, giving them a feeling that something’s missing. Steven’s odd-sounding riff in these verses sounds wiry and barely-controlled tonally—as if it’s just as on the verge of collapse as ONK’s mind. As for how Steven delivers the verses, it’s without any backing vocals—he’s alone on this one.
A special mention should be singled out for Gavin’s drum part since it’s undoubtedly the glue which holds this song together. Via a steady bedrock of hi-hat, snare, and, kick-pedal, Gavin does what a drummer should do and keep time impeccably with a sense of groove. A close listen will reveal that Gavin constantly adds ghost snares into the mix—nothing ever repeats the exact same way twice in a row. For a drummer to do that and keep time as good as Gavin does takes considerable skill—this whole song’s a subtle example of Gavin’s chops on a drumkit, but it’s not the best display of his talents on the album.
The chorus begins at about 0:48 and a few things are noticeable about how it sounds. The most immediate is that the choruses are where Colin enters on bass and delivers a fairly busy bassline consisting of eighth-notes interspersed with a few sixteenth-notes. In fact, this is a very jazz-like bassline (unsurprising given that Colin apparently played in a jazz band before joining PT). Regarding meter, the choruses switch to common-time—a change which gives allows for a sing-along feel in the choruses. As for Gavin, his drum rhythm shifts to a more-conventional one in order to accommodate for the change in meter. A side-effect of this is the lack of ghost snares in the choruses. Instead, it’s just kick-pedal, snare, ride cymbal, some emphatic crash cymbal hits, and the occasional tom. Steven’s guitar serves a more laid-back role by using sustains of various chords and single-notes with a clean-sounding tone—a marked contrast from Steven’s guitar work in the verses. Richard enters for these choruses and delivers a set of synth strings in order to heighten how over-the-top this chorus should sound. And completing that over-the-top quality proves the purpose of Steven’s multi-tracked harmonized vocals in this track—creating an effect that guides you through the madness while adding to it. This chorus—big and anthemic in sound—is the polar opposite of the verses. That contrast may also be an audio clue towards the struggle within ONK’s mind (which is elaborated in “Prodigal” and further developed in “Strip The Soul” and “Collapse The Light Into Earth”).
After the second verse/chorus unit wraps up at around 2:33, the song cuts off to just Steven’s guitar repeating the 7/4 pattern from the verses. This is short-lived because Gavin has a drum fill to enter the fore and at about 2:42, Steven starts a guitar solo (which lasts until around 3:35) that rooted in blues-based scales—a guitar solo that serves the purpose of the song but won’t be among the greatest Steven’s ever recorded. On top of this, Colin plays a bass line that consists of four-beat sustains and walking eighth-notes while Gavin plays the verse rhythm (but with a few added fills). At least until Gavin switches (at about 3:17) to a 7/4 variant of the chorus rhythm. And then the solo ends at around 3:35, leaving an acoustic variant of the chorus to be played until the band joins in for the proper final chorus and the song closes on a small jam after that.
A case can be made for “The Sound of Muzak” (along with “Blackest Eyes” and “Trains”) being songs that should’ve been massive singles for Porcupine Tree. As it stands, it’s another strong track on a near-perfect album.
“Gravity Eyelids” (7:56)
While “Blackest Eyes” and “Lips of Ashes” have hinted at the unsettling undertones that are to come in the second half of the album, “Gravity Eyelids” represents a major step in ONK’s descent. In fact, the song describes ONK’s largest step yet.
Musically, “Gravity Eyelids” may be the most varied song on In Absentia—this one’s got muffled-sounding percussion loops, ghostly-sounding harmonies from Steven, reverb applied to harmonics on guitar, and an instrumental section with some of the most abrasive-sounding guitar on the album. The dynamics are also the widest-ranged of any on the album. However, the entire song’s atmosphere is hellish—even the quiet parts.
One thing to note is that while “Gravity Eyelids” is the longest song on In Absentia, it doesn’t feel like an epic in the way of “Even Less,” “Arriving Somewhere But Not Here,” or “Anesthetize.” A better way to view “Gravity Eyelids” is as another piece in the In Absentia puzzle. This step’s just slightly bigger than the rest.
The first verse has a bunch to chew on:
Open your eyes now.
Hear me out before I lose my mind.
I’ve been waiting for hours.
Let the salt flow, feel my coil unwind.
Before looking at the lyrics themselves, there are two things to touch on: the atmosphere and who ONK’s speaking to. The person ONK’s speaking to is definitely of the feminine persuasion (credits to Dr. Meredig for that expression), but it’s not the same woman he gets married to (again, like the actual Fred West…whose wife was as much of a bastard as he was) in “Wedding Nails.” As for the atmosphere, the activity of sex isn’t one that’s usually associated with the kind of hellish atmosphere used in “Gravity Eyelids.” Unless if the sex depicted in this song isn’t sex, but rape. Then this atmosphere is all-too-appropriate for just how fucked-up rape is.
One thing that is clear from a cursory glance of the lyrics when this is kept in mind is that ONK’s doing this out of power and to gratify his own sexual desires. And we clearly see that because “I” informs us that this song comes right from ONK’s perspective.
Now for the lyrics themselves. The first line—“Open your eyes now”—is a command from ONK to the woman to try to get her to see things his way, so it’s trying to act as though he’s the victim here. Why? Because the next line—“Hear me out before I lose my mind”—isn’t literal. ONK’s aware he’s going to get way to into what he’s doing once he does it. “Blackest Eyes,” and “Lips of Ashes” have shown how cutthroat ONK already is in matters of sex, so what he’s saying to her now boils down to ‘It’ll better for both of us if we just fuck.’
The next line—“I’ve been waiting for hours”—is a time description. But “Let the salt flow, feel my coil unwind” is double-layered, one of which being a phallic symbol. However, the other meaning refers to ONK’s emotional and mental state. ONK’s so hell-bent on just having sex whenever he wants (ever since the events of “Trains”) that he has never had anyone refuse him until now. How could he have had anyone refuse to give him sex when the only people he has had sex with are the cousin (“Trains”) and corpses (“Lips of Ashes”)? One way to see this is that ONK’s such a messed-up person in regards to sex that he literally doesn’t know how to respond to the refusal, so he goes ballistic like an animal that ought to be put down. But given the story of In Absentia, he’s not going to be put down.
The next set of lyrics offers some more to look at:
Give me a smile, please.
Count the calm and watch my breathing slow.
Winding me up, tease.
Get inside my head and make it show.
The first line—“Give me a smile, please”—indicates that ONK’s trying to make this experience more pleasant for himself. Given that we know from “Blackest Eyes” that ONK’s a sadist, making things more pleasant for himself involves stirring reactions out of who he’s fucking. An example of such comes with the literal context of that first line as well as that of the second, where ONK’s telling her to calm herself and to pace herself via his breathing. ONK’s essentially staying as wound up as before, if not more so. But the last line—“Get inside my head and make it show”—comes across as a threat. Namely, it’s ONK telling her ‘Do you see how fucked up I am? Now lay down or you’ll be a dead girl!” More than any line delivered from ONK’s perspective so far, it conveys how utterly warped he truly is.
From that second verse comes a smooth transition into the chorus:
Oh, yeah, gravity eyelids.
Gravity eyelids come down
The title is the thing which bears the brunt of analysis. Specifically, the first word. Gravity, as a force, pushes things down. Therefore, the motion of eyelids being closed is emphasized. As in ONK is doing so by the force of his fingers. Why? Further demoralization, which is something emblematic of social stigma associated with being raped in a society where rape culture is prevalent. One can also see this symbol of the closing of the eyelids as the rape victim’s world about to come crashing down as the result of the trauma associated with being raped.
The next verse has some repeated lyrics, but also some aspects worth peering over:
Touching your oil skin.
Slipping hand down past your waist to find.
I’ve been waiting for hours.
Let the salt flow, feel my coil unwind.
Go to the edge, swim.
Brown the eyes that sleep has rendered blind.
We can now—via “Slipping hand down past your waist to find”—ascertain how ONK is raping the woman in this song: either fingering or fisting. But the repeating of “Let the salt flow, feel my coil unwind” makes it clear that this bastard’s not done. As for “Go to the edge, swim,” that’s ONK acknowledging to himself that he’s going to go as far as he possibly can. For him, violating methods of sex such as necrophilia, child molestation, incest, and rape are an exercise in escalation—a need to seek increasingly extreme forms of gratification. Something which really sells in what a selfish and sadistic piece of shit ONK is.
But the next line—“Brown the eyes that sleep has rendered blind”—is where the meat of this verse’s analysis comes into play. There is a definite use of color symbolism with “Brown” indicating dirt. While some may think that that image means that ONK has killed her, I don’t that that’s what happened here. What “Brown” indicates in its connection to dirt is that ONK’s act of rape has made the victim feel like dirt—making the image of browned gravity eyelids a symbol of the feeling that her humanity’s been violated and dragged down to an all-time-low.
This chorus is the same as the first one, but there are added harmonies which give some new lyrics:
(Come love so young with your gold arms so I wake her.)
(Here’s a will that will glow in the dark.)
The two tracks of harmony vocals in the song are so blurred together that they are hard to make out at first. But what they mean is ambiguous. I think that the two lines are from two different perspectives and that they’re internal thoughts of two people. The first—“Come love so young with your gold arms so I wake her”—is sung in a staggered way: two syllables, then four, then two again, then four again. That fact made me feel that this line was from the perspective of someone being overpowered, so these lines are from the perspective of the rape victim. As for what these thoughts mean, they are an image of what sex should be—loving, not the display of force that this rape thrives upon. This image is likely being used by the woman as a coping mechanism during the rape. If that’s the case, then that makes things even worse.
But not helping matters is the second perspective’s words of “Here’s a will that will glow in the dark.” I read this as coming from the perspective of ONK. The use of the term “will” makes me think that this point of the song marks the point where ONK has decided that this woman will not only be his first rape victim, but his first murder victim as well.
While there is a long instrumental section after those lyrics (which I think represents the drugging, the raping, and then the murdering of this woman in music), but the first version of the chorus recurs after that. In that reprise of the chorus, I think that a couple of details happen. The first being a burial of the girl’s corpse (making “Brown the eyes that sleep has rendered blind” literal). The second being that the “Gravity eyelids” have come down for the last time now that the woman is dead.
From a musical perspective, “Gravity Eyelids” starts with Richard’s synth playing something which sounds like a haunted choir. Until a drum loop appears (at about 0:33):, Richard’s synth effect’s all the listener hears. Alongside the drum loop comes Steven and Colin’s instruments. Colin’s bass plays basic sustains of the same note from here until the second verse, so there’s nothing of note here…except that the repetitive pulse emphasizes a sense of dread. As for Steven’s guitar, he’s probably playing some odd harmonics but under an effect so bizarre that they sound like a ghostly keyboard—an effect that reinforces the sense that something’s not right. This backdrop provides the backing for Steven’s first verse—a verse delivered with a small range that emphasizes the single-minded obsession which ONK exhibits.
Once the song reaches around 1:53, the bedrock for the chorus comes into play. Steven’s guitar part consists of simple sustains, but they’re filtered in such a way that they drone in a violin-esque tone not unlike what Steve Hackett utilized in Gabriel-era Genesis. The big contributor to atmosphere is—as usual—Richard, who picks up a piano. While Richard’s playing is simple, the echoing of the piano chords adds a lot to the unsettling feeling that “Gravity Eyelids” relishes in. Topping it all off is Steven’s vocals—which manage to sound off, but in perfect keeping with the song’s atmosphere.
In the case of “Gravity Eyelids,” the second verse isn’t the same as the first. For starters, the start of the second verse (about 2:34) marks Gavin’s arrival—even with a basic rhythm, the presence of actual drums sounds more lively than that of a drum loop. But to mistake that for security would be foolish—Steven’s guitar still plays the droning sustains from the chorus, so this only develops the tension even further. However, Colin plays something different on bass—a scale-based ascending pattern that starts on the same note as earlier parts of the song. This does have a stop-and-start feel which allows the pattern to cycle over throughout the verse.
While the second chorus mostly follows the protocol established by the first verse, the ethereal harmony vocals add another feeling. That other feeling gives way to outright horror when (at around 3:49) everything except Richard’s ghostly-sounding synth (which sounds close to Steven’s guitar parts in the first verse) and a bit of hi-hats from Gavin. During this whole thing, something which sounds like a mix of static and white noise slowly oscillates in the background. If we subscribe to the idea that ONK’s drugging and raping the woman described in the song, the dropping out of instruments at about 3:49 marks the instant that the woman loses consciousness from the drugs while the remaining instruments and the white noise are the leitmotif of ONK’s thoughts about raping the woman. This all reverberates in the listener’s head as the tension in this section becomes almost unbearable….until guitar returns at around 4:12 for something completely different.
That something different comes in the form of a stop-and-start set of metal guitar riffs. For now, they’re given a percussive sound thanks to Steven palm-muting them. But at about 4:35, the riffs (along with the band and any semblance of quiet) are thrown out the window the moment that Steven stops palm-muting them—this is undoubtedly the heaviest riff on the album since “Blackest Eyes” and a full-fledged metal riff. Although the change in dynamic drowns the bass out, Colin’s following the same serpentine rhythm on bass. While Gavin may appear to play a simple rhythm here, he likes to spice things up with fills—one such example comes via the John Bonham-esque kick-pedal bit at around 4:45. Richard’s not here on keyboards or synths, but maybe that’s a blessing—with the sound already this loud and atmospheric as is, Richard’s presence in this section would prove overwhelming.
The rhythm of the heavy-metal guitars, Gavin’s rock-steady drums, and Colin’s telepathy with Steven’s rhythm provides the perfect opportunity for a guitar solo. And at about 4:58, that guitar solo arrives. However, you’d be forgiven for mistaking Steven’s guitar solo for a synth solo from Richard. In fact, it sounds like fuzz-toned madness mixed with the atonal menace of Slayer’s Kerry King (although not with the shreddy tendencies of that guitarist). The way that it sounds in the mix contributes to my only gripe with the song—the lead tends to blend into the rhythm guitar in this section instead of just gliding over the top of it like a vocal track. Either way, it’s an unorthodox, nightmarish, and fitting guitar solo for the events which it represents. Because if one supports the idea that the earlier (at around 3:49) dropping-out of instruments marked the woman losing consciousness, the metal guitar riffs and the atonal guitar solo mark ONK’s act of actually raping the woman.
After the guitar solo wraps up (at about 5:21), the heaviest part of “Gravity Eyelids” (and one of the heaviest parts of In Absentia in general) arrives. Extending off the theory of what the riffs and guitar solo represented, this crushing guitar riff supports the point of the line “Here’s a will that will glow in the dark.” That lyric indicated that ONK plans to kill the woman after raping her. This horrific-sounding passage (partly by the heavy riff and partly by the fact that it extends the unnerving atmosphere present in the whole song) marks ONK doing just that. Which is an act that (especially with how the song tells it from ONK’s viewpoint) warrants being depicted with an atmosphere as menacing as this one. There’s not a sense of it being a coping mechanism (like the mother in “This Is No Rehearsal”), so there’s no thematic need for rape/murder to be associated with Steven’s technique of ‘upbeat music with disturbing lyrics.
As for how this section actually sounds, the diminished chords which Steven plays sound like thunder and strike in a hammer-like rhythm. Colin’s bass is a constant string of sixteenth-notes (at a tempo of about 85 BPM) that are roughly in pitch with Steven’s riff—this string functions as a pulse. Gavin’s drumwork gradually evolves in this portion. While there’s a consistent bedrock of cymbals, kick-pedal, and snares, Gavin can sometimes change up how the bass pedal is distributed. Sometimes, it’s a steady tap every few beats. Others, it’s a quick triple-kick. Still others, it can be interspersed between cymbal hits. All of this holds true until around 5:50, where Gavin’s has both feet on separate kick pedals in order to play a steady stream of sixteenth-notes with kick-pedal. At this point, it’s a steady rhythm delivered in a build-up that suffocates the listener.
Suffocates the listener until about 6:05, where a reprise of the chorus occurs. But this isn’t the same sound as before. For instance, Steven’s drone-sustains are at a lower frequency and sound more ominous than before. Additionally, Colin’s rhythmic bass guitar may change patterns, but isn’t letting up the rhythmic intensity of the previous section. However, Richard contributes to the change of atmosphere. While the piano from previous choruses can still be heard, the dominant effect of Richard comes from a mellotron-esque synth effect that heightens the dread. If the previous section marked ONK murdering the woman described in the song, the dread here is for ONK—he’s done this and now he’s scared at what else he’s capable of.
Alternatively, the dread here is for the listener because we have no clue what comes next and after this, there’s no telling. Gavin’s drum part factors into this in that the brisk jazz-like rhythm and fills played here serve a similar purpose to the train in “Trains”—the feelings of dread in either ONK, the listener, or both are of little concern to the passage of time.
Following that last chorus, there’s just a guitar solo on the final chorus rhythm (a very droning one at that) before the outro. That outro reverts to the drum loop and Richard’s unnerving synth pattern as a fade-out.
If “Gravity Eyelids” were a stand-alone song, I would have strong reservations against its lyrics as it would be simple to construe it as pro-rape. In the context of In Absentia, I think it’s clear that this isn’t a song where we’re meant to root for the speaker. Additionally, the fact that Steven set a song that’s about rape to such nightmarish music says a lot about how Steven considers rape.
“Wedding Nails” (6:33) [instrumental]
I can hear you thinking “How can an instrumental tie into the concept?” Let’s go back to Fred West for a second—he didn’t kill alone. In fact, his second wife (Rosemary West) was every bit of a sadistic sex-crazed bastard—she participated in just as much in the sexual abuse, the beatings, and the murders as her husband. “Wedding Nails” is the sound of this marriage between two equally-horrific people and then the realization of the havoc they can wreak upon human life. Even the title “Wedding Nails” reflects this—it’s an inverse to ‘wedding bells’ and indicates that this is a marriage that no good can come from.
As for how “Wedding Nails” sounds, the first thing to point out is the opening guitar part which recurs throughout the song. It’s a quick and jagged-sounding riff that ends in what sounds like two guitars playing a harmonized chord sequence before the rest of the band enters. Then, Colin plays a circling stop-and-start bassline while Gavin’s lays down the second most-difficult drum part on the album (“The Creator Has A Mastertape” being the hardest). While the song may sound not too difficult for drums besides the myriad of fills which Gavin throws around, the main rhythm which Gavin Harrison plays hinges on a complicated beat. What Gavin does is have one hand alternate between ride cymbal and hi-hat while the other plays a lot of snares—most of them are ghost notes played so quietly that you won’t hear them without headphones, but they’re there. However, this beat’s in-keeping with the rest of the song.
Everything changes up at :, where a different rhythmic pattern emerges. The big distinguishing feature exhibited here is the presence of Richard Barbieri’s keyboards, which add layers of air to the chaos brewing from the other instruments. While Colin keeps order with a rhythm which Steven will play on guitar at the song’s end, Gavin’s drum pattern relies not on ghost snares, but on crash-cymbal and kick pedal—and the meanest drum fills of the entire song. The two riffs which Steven plays in this section are what add the darkening shades. The first (appearing at about 0:35) consists of high-pitched chords being strummed quickly in a pattern which seems almost voice-like. The second (appearing at around 0:50) returns to lower strings for some quick single-note arpeggios, but is counterpointed by flourishes of high-notes. If “Wedding Nails” had lyrics, this section would constitute the chorus and Steven’s first riff here would be the melody.
After this ‘chorus’ pattern wraps up, the song (at about 1:21) reverts to the intro riff and makes the listener think the whole thing will repeat. That’s not the case. At around 1:51, the pre-established riffs abruptly cut-off in the transition from one measure to the next and a new section begins. While this section doesn’t rely on fast crushingly-heavy metal guitars as what came before, the atmosphere of the section (aided by the ever-dependable Richard Barbieri) feels tailor-made to unsettle listeners in a similar manner as the opening few minutes of “Gravity Eyelids.” Barbieri emerges as the star of this section for the atmosphere he paints with the layers of keyboards: some sound normal while others sound machine-like to the point of being near-inhuman. All the while, Steven and Colin play a descending chord pattern consisting of four notes, but played two chords at a time. During all of this, Gavin keeps the bass pedal in-sync with Steven/Colin, plays a steady bedrock of cymbal-work, delivers thunderous snare-work, and provides the occasional fill. Steven’s guitar solo (at about 2:31) appears atypical for his style, but “Wedding Nails” opts for a feel atypical to much of Porcupine Tree’s output, so it’s a fair trade. Anyways, this sounds atonal and Slayer-esque, but that fits into the sense of unease which this middle section excels at putting you in. Then, Steven’s solo wraps up and the whole rhythm vamps around for a bit.
Once the song closes in on the 3:16 mark, another unexpected turn happens: a sudden stopping of the instruments. Except for Barbieri, who creates an air which unnerves because it’s too quiet and you get the sense that something’s about to go wrong. Especially with the second or two of silence. That something explodes at around 3:48, when the band returns to the ‘chorus’ rhythm. However, it’s not a straight-up reprise of the ‘chorus.’ A careful listener will notice that it’s in a higher key than earlier—making this version sound triumphant. This marks the joyousness of the wedding.
Instead of reverting to the intro riff again, the ‘chorus’ gives way (at about 4:35) to a new riff…kinda. Remember how I said that the bass riff which Colin plays in the ‘chorus’ would come into play towards the end? This is where that happens. Steven plays a variant of Colin’s bass riff in this passage, but he caps off every other ending of the riff with two frightening diminished chords. During this whole pattern, Gavin’s laying down a rhythm as taxing as anything else which the song has to offer—even smashing multiple cymbals to punctuate Steven’s diminished chords.
The song seems to end at around 5:06, where Steven’s last diminished chord turns into a long sustain. But the song goes on with only Richard Barbieri setting up an atmosphere even spookier than that of the middle section. There is a definite ‘horror movie vibe’ to this particular section, but it might go on for a little longer than it should. But remember how I said that the key change in the second ‘chorus’ marked a joyousness of the wedding? That serves in contrast to this ending, which indicates that ONK’s a fool to think that marriage will make him happy.
As a piece of music, “Wedding Nails” isn’t my favorite instrumental from Porcupine Tree (that’s “Burning Sky” from Up The Downstair). However, it’s just as critical to the In Absentia concept as the other 11 songs on the album. The fact that it’s an instrumental also helps in that one can enjoy “Wedding Nails” outside of the album’s context more easily than several of the other tracks (not an approach I endorse since I believe that the meaning is inseparable from the context).
“Prodigal” (5:32)
As a song which is sandwiched between one of the heaviest songs and one of the murkiest songs on In Absentia, “Prodigal” can have two responses from a first-time listener: end up being one of your favorites on the album or one of your least favorites. This is because those who like Stupid Dream/Lightbulb Sun-era PT will think “This one’s right up my alley!,” while the metal audience who jumped onto the band with this album were like “This one’s not heavy. Let’s get back to the good stuff!” I was one of the latter when I first heard In Absentia, but now it’s my 5th favorite track on the album (the ones ahead of it are “Blackest Eyes,” “Trains,” and two others that are still to come).
Why the change of mind? Part of that comes with more familiarity with Steven Wilson’s works. But an even bigger part is that “Prodigal” has an understated sense of melancholy. What I mean by this is that while songs like “This Is No Rehearsal” seemed off due to melding upbeat music to disturbing lyrics, “Prodigal” does a similar technique but with the contrast coming across as much less jarring.
The first verse of lyrics offers something to chew on:
I don’t know whose side I’m on.
I don’t think that I belong round here.
If I left the stage would that be wrong?
The general sense of escape is one captured vividly in the opening lines of “Prodigal.” But an even more prominent thread running through the first two lines is that of confusion. This leads to an idea of choices which will recur throughout “Prodigal”—that you must give up one thing for another. Where this song goes is to declare that that’s an impossible task which sets up a state of pressure which ensures that any choice will never be made because of the sentimental value attached to the things in question.
But hang on—that’s easy to relate to. Are these lyrics still coming from the same guy who committed necrophilia four songs ago? Yes—and the fact that such a relatable thought can come from the feelings of a serial killer/rapist is the first sign of how off-kilter the train of thought exhibited in “Prodigal” will be. The confusion exhibited by that is a prelude to the fact that “Prodigal” is the mental decline of ONK—after “Prodigal,” ONK will be completely insane.
But even in this verse, Steven takes it further by having ONK ask “If I left the stage would that be wrong?” Yes, ONK is contemplating suicide in these lines. However, the asking of “would that be wrong” is something which contradicts how ONK’s been characterized as a sociopath in this album. Namely, it shows that—on some level—ONK’s aware of just how horrific the things he’s done (especially in “Gravity Eyelids”) are. The moral judgment here entails that because ONK feels he can’t control himself, killing himself would be the right thing to do. Think of it this way….if every rapist in the world got together and had a mass suicide, who would miss them? Would encouraging their suicides be more morally correct than to allow them to live and continue to rape people? By putting these thoughts into a character that has already exhibited acts of rape, murder, and necrophilia, Steven’s asking us to consider those questions—which are admittedly difficult ones because they pit one moral against another. Steven manages to do all of that simply by having ONK ask if anyone would miss him if he killed himself.
With a topic as heavy as suicide being introduced in the third line, you’d think that “Prodigal” is a sad song. But it veers in tone from the lyrics a lot—a reflection of the conundrum between thoughts and feelings. This is a song whose tonal conflicts between music and lyrics mirror the tonal conflicts between different parts of the lyrics—not an easy task. And high-brow enough that the song didn’t truly click until (at least) the sixth listen of the album.
The second verse has a smaller bit of information to offer:
I tried to find myself a better way.
I got religion but I went astray.
They took my money and I lost my faith.
The important thing about this verse is that ONK’s desperate and seeks to reform the best he can. Problem is that killers/rapists in the mold of ONK can’t truly reform because that would require filling in the ‘absence of the soul’ which cannot be filled. This desperation of ONK’s leads him to try to seek religion as a form of instant gratification—an alternative to the unsavory methods that ONK’s employed in the album so far. The fact that Steven (an atheist) put religion in this role of the story could have some role on how Steven views organized religion, but I think there’s something else here. Namely, the church appears to stand in for a figure that claimed to have the answer to our problems. Such a commentary can reflect badly on the church, but it can also entail that ONK’s just as deluded for thinking that a place of religion would give him instant gratification.
The chorus has so much to chew on that only the basics will be related for now. The rest will be saved for the variant of the chorus at the end:
Rain keeps crawling down the glass.
The good times never seem to last.
Close your eyes and let the thought pass.
The contrast of this chorus’s sentiment (best summed up in the last line) with the severity of the verses indicates a split personality within ONK. One personality truly believes the sentiment of the verses, while the side of ONK that fights from inside operates on the credo of the chorus.
The third verse offers the most straightforward lines in the whole song so far:
I tried the capsule and I tried to smoke.
I tried to aid escape like normal folk.
But I never seemed to get the joke.
The first line is literal in what’s happening (although the “smoke” here refers to pot, not cigarettes), but the fact that ONK’s resorting to drugs in an attempt to redirect the murderous/sexual urges into something else shows how desperately he wants to reform. As already established, ONK can’t do that. However, he’s trying to engage in escapism through methods such as drugs so he won’t have to face the fact of his inability to reform. He may have even attempted suicide depending on how one reads “aid escape.” That ONK “never seemed to get the joke” in anything—the drugs, the religion, or the attempted suicide—means that nothing is doing any good at helping him. All that this is doing is further driving the wedge of paranoia that’ll end up being what finally drives him insane.
Following the second chorus, there are these lyrics stated in the background:
These are my old clothes.
This is a new low.
This is my blood flow.
This is my headstone.
The distorted vocoder-like tone (so much so that I had trouble making it out until I saw a lyric sheet) reflects how these lines are interpreted—these thoughts represent a total decay in ONK’s lifestyle. Instead of inflicting harm on others via rape and murder, he’s engaging in self-harm (as implied by “This is my blood flow”). Which bears iterating that this is a stark, non-romanticized view of things.
Then this is the last verse:
I spend my days with all my friends.
They’re the ones on who my life depends.
I’m gonna miss them when the series ends.
The hinge word on interpretations of this line is “series,” which can be construed as referring to either a TV series or a series of events. I lean towards the latter reading, but either idea involves ONK frittering his days aimlessly by doing meaningless things. This is because the desire to reform and the desire for immediate gratification butt heads with each other at every turn, leading to an inability to make a choice. In this case, ONK has developed too much sentimental attachment to the pleasure brought by harming/raping/killing other people—he’s finding it hard to give up. The only way that these murderous impulses can be quelled is by actively choosing not to make a choice. This inaction is what his life and the lives of his friends depend on, but ONK can feel that this peaceful period will end soon. Therefore, the sociopathy is something innate in ONK and destined to happen—he knows he’ll snap soon and possibly kill these friends. This is doubtless an ominous sign of the events on the rest of the album.
However, the implications of a split personality opens this line up even further. While the chorus entails only two personalities, there is nothing suggesting more than two. Going off of the ‘TV series’ interpretation of “series,” the concept is possible that all of the personalities are like characters of a TV show—making this an image emblematic of ONK’s paranoia. Additionally, “I’m” could be the personality of ONK that is the most human-like (the one which wants to reform) while the most inhuman personality is the ONK whose perspective we see in “Lips of Ashes,” “Gravity Eyelids,” and “Strip The Soul.” This duality is relevant to the choruses of “Prodigal.”
While the third chorus does repeat lines from the other choruses, the new lines in the backing vocals create additional context with an emotionally-powerful section:
Rain keeps crawling down the glass.
(Pull yourself together.)
The good times never seem to last.
(You know it’s not so bad.)
Close your eyes and let the thought pass.
(Close your eyes and let it pass.)
While the regular chorus contrasted an optimistic sentiment with the depressing verses to give the sense of a split personality, the song has since given hints towards ONK having a split personality in the last verse. For the last chorus to maintain its emotional punch, new context must be achieved. For that context, the harmonies enact an internal argument with ONK’s self—all done in tones which gives me chills every time I hear the song. As to what he’s debating over, it’s over the choices to make…but it’s at a permanent deadlock between what he wants to do (reform) and what he’s destined to do (kill/rape).
One thing about hearing this song outside the context of In Absentia is that this last section—with internalized harmonies getting the last word of the song—gives the impression that ONK’s attempts to reform will end up being successful. Unfortunately, that’s a lie. Unless you think that making a choice for the worse (such as it is with “.3” onward) is preferable to a state of permanent indecision.
Musically, “Prodigal” begins with some slide-guitar (or what sounds like it) from Steven—just one example of instrumentation which suggests something more hopeful than what really occurs. Colin’s bass line—three measure-long sustains followed by a brief, measure-long fill—feels unorthodox and the jazz-like structure of it suggests that there’s something disorganized in ONK’s mind before Steven utters any lyrics. As for Gavin, his steady 4/4 rhythm indicates something in “Prodigal” that’s not as easy to notice by focusing on guitar or bass—that the tempo (160 BPM) is the second-fastest on In Absentia. That disconnect between imagined tempo and actual tempo also suggests something disorganized in ONK’s mind. As for what Gavin actually plays, it’s a steady stream of ride cymbal, kick-pedal, snare hits, some ghost snares, and the occasion hi-hat—a rudimentary rhythm which Gavin keeps varied enough to keep the song fresh. All of these elements are the foundation for the verses, which Steven delivers in a tone that suggests boredom and disillusionment with the world….or more accurately, one aspect of ONK being disillusioned with the other. As the verse ends, an emphatic and blues-like guitar pattern is discernible that drives the point of madness home with repetition of three notes.
Once the chorus arrives (at about 1:07), the instrumentation shifts. While Steven’s slide guitar still dominates, one can faintly hear acoustic guitar strumming in the background. Colin plays a highly melodic bass part that hardly stays at one spot for long. Gavin’s drumming now adds sporadic tom fills into the mix, but otherwise is a similar rhythm to that of the verses. Richard plays simple measure-long chord sustains that coat an atmosphere into the chorus. But the undertones of struggle, hope, and optimism are conveyed largely by the tones which Steven’s voice gives off in this chorus.
While the second verse/chorus unit remains largely unchanged from that of the first, something curious happens once the second chorus finishes (at around 2:06). If Gavin’s drum fill didn’t clue you in, the presence of a new guitar riff from Steven (this one played on both acoustic and electric guitar) will—this section of “Prodigal” offers a change of pace from earlier. This riff is one that’s arena-rock ready and sounds larger-than-life. Such a sentiment is echoed with Gavin’s triumphant-sounding drums and Colin’s jazz-like bass parts. However, the distorted vocals from Steven undercut the idea that “Prodigal” is an anthem—“These are my old clothes/And this is a new low/And this is my blood flow/And this is my headstone” are hardly inspirational words to live by.
But at about 2:52, “Prodigal” shifts into an unexpected moment where Steven’s harmonies wail in an ethereal tone. This bit is complemented by a new rhythm from Gavin (going back to ride cymbal), a gradual descending of pitch from Colin’s bass line, some spacy-sounding synth effects from Richard, and two ringing chords from Steven. This serves as a transition to Steven’s first guitar solo (which is very blues-based and utilizes sustains and bends), which has the same rhythmic backing as the verses—making for an easy transition into the last verse.
While the last verse may be similar to the rest of them, the final chorus (at around 3:48) doesn’t apply to that because of the added lyrics. Namely, the instrumentation contrasts with itself in that the atmospheric keyboards finds itself at odds with the slide guitar in a similar respect to how the two aspects of ONK are at war with each other. In many respects, the sunny quality of “Prodigal” has clouds cast over it because of how that sunny quality came about.
After a reprisal of the post-chorus (from about 2:28), the song doesn’t revert back to the verse pattern. Instead, the rhythm of the post-chorus is kept for a second guitar solo from Steven. This solo’s definitely a more traditional ‘rock solo’ in that melodic bits, some faster bits, and a soaring tone are all here. All are complemented well by the rhythm section. While Gavin sticks to a tired-and-true rhythm, he also dishes out some fills to keep things from getting stale. Particularly of note is Colin, whose bass line keeps perfect rhythm while constantly engaging in melodic fills on higher parts of the neck—Colin doesn’t stay in one place for very long in this outro. The second guitar solo essentially ends the song save for a monstrous fill from Gavin.
Overall, “Prodigal” provides a listenable experience on the first couple of listens. But it takes peeling back the layers of lyrics to see that the song’s something special and a great example of Steven Wilson’s songwriting genius. Once I did that, “Prodigal” moved from one of my least favorite songs on In Absentia to one of my favorites.
“.3” (5:25)
While “.3” is the low-point of In Absentia due to it functioning more as a transition (from “Prodigal” to “The Creator Has A Mastertape”) than an actual song, that doesn’t mean it should be skipped. In fact, this is the song where ONK makes the choice that he was indecisive about in “Prodigal.”
When “.3” begins, the first thing you hear is an ominous-sounding bass riff from Colin. Please remember the sound of the riff because a faster version will appear in “Strip The Soul.” But this is merely a prelude to the general atmosphere that “.3” sets. As always, atmosphere in Porcupine Tree comes via Richard, whose off-kilter sounds at the start (which sound like squeaky windshield wipers) give way to light-toned synths which plant the seeds for the feeling which “.3” marks. That feeling is one of build-up to a crucial decision, but it’s presented in a light that feels cinematic thanks to Richard’s synths. This only becomes more true at 0:42, where Steven’s guitar enters in with droning sustains in a minor-key scale. Just a second after Steven enters, Gavin starts a roll of marching band-esque snares that lead into the basic drum rhythm of the song: ride cymbal, kick-pedal, snare hits, and ghost snares. Gavin and Colin’s rhythm section provides a foundation for Steven and Richard to create an atmosphere which haunts, causes tears of joy, and strikes listeners cold with a constant crescendo which lasts until only Gavin and Colin are left (at 2:23).
Shortly after some synth rumblings from Richard pop up, the song transitions into a section led by acoustic guitar chords from Steven. While Colin doesn’t return until the section ends, Gavin taps on his ride cymbal in a steady quarter-note pace as Richard slowly raises his string-esque synth into a crescendo that ends the section.
This section has the only lyrics of this song—a repetition (four times in total) of:
Black the sky, weapons fly.
Lay them waste for your race.
Looking at those lyrics, one may think the song’s about war (not helping by some taking the title as referring to World War 3). That’s not what “.3” is about. These sparse lyrics actually have more depth than expected. But the important thing to consider is that if “Prodigal” marked a failed attempt to reform, “.3” is the acceptance of his monstrous nature—a decision to indulge in his murderous ways. So while the killing itself doesn’t start until “The Creator Has A Mastertape,” the decision to start killing is what “.3” is (in general) about.
Now into more specific detail, “Black the sky” starts the song off with a poetic image that sums up what death is. However, the song leaves in the possibility that this can refer to two types of death. The first is to ONK’s future victims. The second is to how ONK’s dead on the inside, a detail elaborated upon from the “Swim with me into your blackest eyes” line from “Blackest Eyes.”
Regarding “Weapons fly,” that’s the tools which ONK will use for committing murder/violence/rape/abuse. Such tools mentioned in later songs include pills, chloroform, a belt, and a spike. But “fly” suggests a motion which supports an aspect of ONK that’s true at this point: he’s utterly out-of-control.
As for “Lay them waste for your race,” the last part of that should be clarified first. In this context, “race” refers to a goal—not an ethnicity. As for the goal itself, that’s obvious—ONK’s goal boils down to mass murder in order to “lay them waste.” That leaves a question as to who “them” is, but that’s left deliberately ambiguous. Which serves to suggest that “them” is any person ONK can murder—an equal-opportunity murderer.
When the acoustic section gives way to the familiar bass line of Colin’s (at 4:03), the atmosphere continues. However, since ONK’s already made his decision in the last section, the instrumentation darkens. In particular, Steven’s electric guitar has been placed under inhuman-sounding effects. Richard’s string-esque synth continues, but it carries over the melancholy from the previous section.
Despite being my least-favorite track on In Absentia, “.3” is still a moving piece of music—especially knowing the context.
“The Creator Has a Mastertape” (5:21)
Without a doubt the heaviest song on In Absentia so far, “The Creator Has A Mastertape” marks the exact moment where the story about the serial killer becomes the darkest music that Porcupine Tree ever released. There are almost no rays of sunshine from here on out, making the music either oppressive or soul-crushing.
The song starts with a set of electric guitar sustains in chromatic scale. This set of six simple and droning notes (simple enough that I can play it) puts the listener in a state of unease.
Immediately after, Steven speaks these lyrics in what sounds like a monotone:
He captured and collected things
And he put them in a shed.
He raised a proper family,
So he could tie them to a bed.
Before taking a deeper dive, the use of the pronoun “He” in this song tells the listener that this song isn’t from ONK’s point of view. Instead, it’s in third-person omniscient, so this narrator is looking back on the case after it’s closed (note the use of past-tense verbs). This gives the listener a subtle hint that in spite of how fucked up this story is (and it gets worse), ONK/Fred West will face justice.
As for the lyrics themselves, the first line—“He captured and collected things/And he put them in a shed”—appears to not refer to people. This would be a mistake to assume—ONK has already been seen in “Blackest Eyes” (“I got people underneath my bed” and “I got secrets in my garden shed”) to have bodies literally littered throughout his home. Fred West—who ONK has numerous parallels to—was found with his home in a similar state. As for the use of the word “things” in lieu of people, that in-and-of-itself has connotations of dehumanization being utilized by ONK in order to make the killings easier on his psyche.
In regards to “He raised a proper family,/So he could tie them to a bed,” I’m certain that this is a direct parallel between ONK and Fred West. While West did raise a family and get married (as entailed by “Wedding Nails), there is an irony towards this—normalcy doesn’t make ONK/Fred West happy, only immediate gratification in increasingly-depraved forms. In fact, “So he could tie them to a bed” outright states that he only had children so he and his wife (if ONK’s wife is based off Rose West, then she’s just as evil as ONK) can force their physical and sexual abuse on them.
The song’s chorus is easily the most abstract part of the song, so this will demand a bit of chewing:
The creator had a mastertape,
But he left it in a cab.
I stared into the void too late.
The best dream I ever had.
A technical term that will come into play later is that while the first two lines of the verse remain in third-person omniscient, the last two lines shift to the first person. However, these lines are not from ONK’s viewpoint. This would mean that there are two metaphors at play and then some kind of connection between the two.
The first metaphor—“The creator had a mastertape/But he left it in a cab”—can be read in two ways. The first is that “the creator” is a recording artist, the “mastertape” a multi-track audio file, and the action of leaving “it in a cab” allows the mastertape to be stolen and corrupted in ways unintended by the recording artist. The second way is a god (unlikely since Steven’s a pretty staunch atheist) losing track of what the plan was for a particular human being—causing ONK to become what he did. I’m leaning more towards the first way of reading the metaphor.
As for the second metaphor (“I stared into the void too late./The best dream I ever had”), that demands a little more unpacking. First, the perspective should be clarified—these lines are from the viewpoint of someone being physically abused by ONK. To the point where they end up staring blindly into the distance for an extended period of time. While they see nothing (“the void”), nothing is preferable to the torture they’ve been through—it’s practically a dream once they’ve been desensitized to ONK’s horrors. As for “too late,” that implies that this perspective is a doomed man—he won’t be surviving. Perhaps he’s the subject of a future song (did I just give that away)?
The song’s second/final verse has a couple things to look at:
He worked himself into the ground
And drove a spike into his head.
A voice said “Are you happy now?”
Your sordid home is running red.
These lines zero in on the killer again. While the first two lines are literal and graphic, the line which stands to analysis is “A voice said “Are you happy now?”” Given that “Prodigal” established that ONK has a split personality, this can be read as one personality taunting another by pointing out how insane ONK has become. As for “running red,” there’s no way that can be seen as anything other than red with blood.
The last lines of the song—repeated a number of times—warrant a look:
Pills and chloroform.
All the pages torn.
These lines confirm two of ONK’s methods: pill-based overdose for murders and chloroform for rapes/tying people to bed. The mention of pills is significant because they can be tied into “Heartattack In A Layby,” but also because that and “spike” are the only direct mentions of a murder method in the whole album. Apart from those, the methods of ONK’s murders are left ambiguous.
Given that I already mentioned the eerie-sounding six-note guitar part which Steven starts the song with, the more relevant thing would be to detail what follows. The place to start would be with Gavin’s drum work because this entire song marks the most-technical drumming on the album. To start with the polyrhythm which Gavin plays once he enters, the kick-pedal is in-sync with Colin’s walking bassline while the snares are on a regular beat. The part that makes things technical are the open and closed hi-hats which can fall on eighth-notes or sixteenth-notes in ways that feel like a standard beat being cleaved open by mini-fills. On top of that are the presence of ghost snares. In addition to that, Gavin can throw in drum fills that come as fast as the main beat. That Gavin manages to keep up such a difficult rhythm with Peart-like accuracy without forsaking feel proves that he may be one of the greatest drummers alive.
This hectic rhythm of Gavin’s constitutes the bedrock for Steven’s atonal guitar solo here. If the guitar solo in “Gravity Eyelids” sounded unmusical, this one’s hardly better. But it marks that ONK’s truly lost his marbles and become an unhinged psychopath by this point, something which a pleasant-sounding guitar solo wouldn’t convey nearly as effectively.
Regardless, that guitar solo transitions smoothly into the first verse, which consist of the same Colin/Gavin rhythm which has coated everything up till now. However, the monotone way which Steven delivers the lyrics deserves notice. Namely that there’s three ways to look at it: apathy towards ONK’s crimes, desensitization at how pervasive they are in human culture, or a coping mechanism in order to process something that horrific.
While the first chorus (around 1:20) maintains the steady Colin/Gavin rhythm, the presence of Steven’s droning sustains on guitar ramps up the tension in the music. In the case of the first chorus, it seems less of a chorus and more of a build-up. As for what it’s building up to, look no further than the riff that follows (about 1:44). This riff of Steven’s consists of heavy rhythmic chord strums broken up by two chromatic notes—a pattern which sounds dissonant and crushing. Colin’s bass—smothered in the mix—follows that while keeping the same walking rhythm as before. Gavin does change gears and starts attacking crash cymbal in a more conventional rhythm, but instead amps up the amount of ghost snares—there are points which the ghost snares give this section a rolling rhythm (particularly the random measure of 6/4 at the end).
Although the second verse remains largely unchanged from the first, there’s one significant difference. That difference is a break from rhythm that Gavin undertakes just after Steven’s says “And drove a spike into his head.” That break sounds like a manic burst of snares and kick-pedal which lasts for a full measure. Complementing this is Richard pounding four high-pitched notes which sound like beeps of an EEG. Shockingly, Colin’s bassline keeps this whole thing in such perfect order that this bit doesn’t deviate in time signature or tempo.
While the second chorus/post-chorus unit remains identical to the first, what happens after (around 3:24) marks a break from the pattern. There’s a break where an instrument is played which sounds like either effects-driven guitar or synth (in this case, I can’t tell which). But this break proves short-lived since about 3:33 signals the return of Gavin—who plays an astonishingly fast fill on snare, tom, and kick-pedal as a lead in to the outro.
This outro—the “Pills and chloroform/All the pages torn” section—has Gavin and Colin revert to the verse rhythm while Richard (probably) continues the rhythm played during the break. In all of this, Steven plays the six-note guitar figure from the beginning of the song. But after that, the final section of the song arrives (around 4:21). While this section has similarities to the post-chorus riff, they’re not the same. First, Richard contributes a suffocating atmosphere to this which crescendos to the point of near-collapse. Additionally, Steven’s guitar riff depends more on a thrash metal chugging rhythm between the chromatic notes. Thirdly, this goes on for a longer stretch of time than either of the post-chorus riffs, which stretches the tension to such a breaking point that the song would become monotonous had it opted not to crash out when it did.
As a song “The Creator Has A Mastertape” is the heaviest song on In Absentia because (unlike the slower-paced “Strip The Soul”) the speed (at 165 BPM, it’s the album’s fastest song) makes the riffs assault listeners before they have room to breathe, an effect which works in the song’s third-person omniscient viewpoint. This is because the viewpoint marks someone just as likely to feel this way about ONK’s actions as the listener.
“Heartattack In A Layby” (4:15)
In my eyes, “Heartattack In A Layby” is not only the saddest song in the Porcupine Tree catalog, but the saddest song which Steven Wilson has ever written. It may even be the saddest song that anyone has written in the 21st century so far. But to examine why this song packs a devastating punch, one has to understand that Steven uses nearly every technique in his toolbox for the sole purpose of breaking the listener into a puddle of tears: hypnotic background instruments which make something simple into something sublime, layers upon layers of vocal overdubs (the last minute is practically a “Bohemian Rhapsody” moment for Steven), lyrics which appear simple at first glance but contain layers of depth, an uncanny use of melodies (along with counterpoint), the usage of the studio to make Steven’s ambitions even stronger, and an atmosphere that deepens the tone of the music itself. All of this considered, one thing which makes “Heartattack In A Layby” such a strong piece of music is just how thoroughly the song’s power succeeds at making listeners cry—because that’s what Steven set out to make with this and he may have succeeded a little too well.
One thing to note about “Heartattack In A Layby” is that some would view the song as disconnected from the In Absentia narrative. I disagree because two hints are given in “The Creator Has A Mastertape.” The first hint comes from the second half of that song’s chorus (“I stared into the void too late./The best dream I ever had”), which foreshadows the story of this song from the perspective of this song’s character. As for the second hint, it’s the “pills.”
The way that I put this all together is that the speaker of “Heartattack In A Layby” is one of the friends mentioned in the last verse of “Prodigal” who hasn’t seen ONK in a while and decides to pay a visit to his old pal. What he didn’t see coming was for ONK to spike his drink with a lethal overdose of pills before letting him drive off. That makes “I stared into the void too late” make sense within the song. What about “The best dream I ever had?” I’ll get to that later on in the song.
In an inversion of my normal routine, I’ll discuss the music before the lyrics. Figured that it’d make sense given that “Heartattack In A Layby” is—in terms of what’s played (not what’s felt)—probably the easiest song on In Absentia to play on any musical instrument. Any bass that Colin plays in this song are the most basic sustains, but they add to the atmosphere which the song creates. Gavin doesn’t enter until more than a-minute-and-a-half in and even then, he plays a ride cymbal once every half-measure—which creates a constant ringing sound that makes a sense of order that’s needed for the end of the song. As for Steven, there are two guitar patterns played and while both are so simple that I can play them, the way they sound feels like a strike at the heartstrings with every chord. While Richard plays simple bits of piano and synth, the ringing of the piano chords and the building-up quality of the synths in the latter portions of the song add wonders to the utter despair which “Heartattack In A Layby” conveys. Yes, all of these parts are simple but the magic conveyed by them is a perfect storm—this is one of the few songs that can make me sob before the lyrics come in.
But the lyrics of “Heartattack In A Layby” are where the song’s true power lies—the maudlin instrumentation may be the perfect accompaniment, but it’s just that. Once Steven’s voice enters (at about the thirty second mark) the song, these lyrics are the first things to be sung:
I pull off the road, east of Baldock and Ashford.
Feeling for my cell, in the light of the dashboard.
Hissing from the road, the smell of rain in the air con.
Maybe check the news or just put a tape on.
Lighting up a smoke, I’ve got this feeling inside me.
Don’t feel too good.
Much of these lines are scene-setting details. However, they set the scene so vividly that everything which follows ends up becoming that much more impactful due to the concrete details of these opening lines. But the last parts—“I’ve got this feeling inside me./Don’t feel too good”—gives an introduction to the sense of steady decline which this song enacts. That steady decline is right in the song’s title: a literal description of what happens in the song. But sadly, this man thinks (at first) that it’ll go away. It doesn’t—it’s a pills-induced heart attack. But the feeling of a build-up is indicated in the intensity of the sensory details in the first few lines.
In between the verses, a backing vocal can be heard saying:
(Yo-de, Yo-de, Yo-de, Yo-de)
This isn’t a sound effect, but an overdubbed vocal take imitating the sound of something. As to what it is imitating, it should raise alarms…because it’s of an ambulance.
During the part where the ‘ambulance vocals’ play, its left to Richard and Steven on guitar and piano/synth—here is where the song manages to become haunting and tear-jerking simultaneously. This vocalless section is what “Heartattack In A Layby” has instead of a chorus or even a refrain. The effect of such is that there’s no time to stop, which highlights the severity of the impending death that the speaker’s experiencing. The intensity of mood conveyed by so little notes manages to amaze a listener—albeit in different respects than much of Steven Wilson’s oeuvre amazes.
While the first verse had a little bit to analyze, it was only a prelude for the second verse and the last verse. The second verse may be shorter, but there’s more to chew on here than in the first:
If I close my eyes and fell asleep in this layby
Would it all subside? The fever pushing the day by.
Motor window wind, I could do with some fresh air.
Can’t breathe too well.
While nothing can stop the song’s title from coming true, there are lines here which add depth to this. For instance, the first bit—“If I close my eyes and fell asleep in this layby/Would it all subside?”—entails that if he just drifts off, he thinks he can wake up with this feeling gone; a form of denial. But there’s something more to that when one considers that the speaker already knows that something’s seriously wrong with him and that he’s trying to accept that. What makes that evident in these lines are the conflicted responses the speaker makes. For instance, the speaker thinks he has a fever, but also considers lying down and letting it consume him instead of seeking immediate medical attention. Then when that doesn’t work, he rolls down the window. At that point, he feels a burning sensation while being unable to breathe. In a sense, two different things (burning inside and shortness of breath) are killing him.
This section—the start of the climax—has multiple things at play. Since this is a long last verse, it’ll be split up into three smaller parts. The first part reads:
I guess I should go now, she’s waiting to make up.
(She. Waits. For. Me. Home. Waits. For Me.)
To tell me she’s sorry, and how much she missed me.
(She. Waits. For. Me. Home. Waits. For. Me.)
These backing vocals—“She. Waits. For. Me. Home. Waits. For. Me.”—reveal a crucial bit of new information: that the speaker has a wife. How this factors into the song makes it split into two interpretations that hinge on where “Home” is: actual home or the afterlife. If the former’s the case, the speaker’s in a mode of denial and believes he can make it despite knowing that he’s about to die—he’s never going to see her again. If the latter interpretation is true, then the speaker’s a widower and has been for an unknown amount of time. Regardless of which interpretation of that one word, the phrase spoken by the backing vocals are the inner thoughts of the speaker.
While both theories seem sensible, the second half of the chorus of “The Creator Has A Mastertape” (“I stared into the void too late./The best dream I ever had.”) influences which interpretation is reasonable. As for why dying can be called “The best dream I ever had,” it’s because the speaker can then be reunited with his long-gone wife. A wife—as “she’s waiting to make up” implies—whose last interaction may very well have ended with one of them in anger over something one of them said, but they never got to make amends before her (presumably sudden) death. But “I guess I should go now” (in this context) indicates a death wish because he sees himself as having nothing left to live for.
The second part of the outro is as follows:
I guess I’m just burnt out, I really should slow down.
(She. Waits. For. Me. Home. Waits. For. Me.)
I’m perfectly fine but, I just need to lie down.
(She. Waits. For. Me. Home. Waits. For. Me.)
That first phrase—“I guess I’m just burnt out”—proves a crowning example of why Steven’s word choice goes a long way towards making this song as sad as it is. Because that phrase doesn’t mean that the speaker is dying—it means that the speaker is accepting death because he’s tired of living and wants to go “Home” to his long-deceased wife. As for “slow down,” that can refer to functions such as breath and heart rate—basically telling himself that he should die a little quicker. This lack of self-regard intensifies as another line of contention (between multiple interpretations) comes up: “I’m perfectly fine but I just need to lie down.” That line has two meanings as well: the speaker maintaining his denial or the speaker perpetuating a sick form of acceptance. An acceptance that boils down to him—just about to die—telling himself “Let me move over so I can die a little more comfortably.” Given the album’s support of the ‘deceased wife’ theory, that lends more credence to the sick form of acceptance.
The third and final part of the last verse of the song consists of:
We’ll grow old together. We’ll grow old together.
(She. Waits. For. Me. Home Waits. For. Me.)
We’ll grow old together. We’ll grow old together.
(She. Waits. For. Me. Home. Waits. For. Me.)
We’ll grow old together. We’ll grow old together.
(She. Waits. For. Me. Home. Waits. For. Me.)
This repetition—undulating layers of vocal harmonies—makes this the audio equivalent of a death via heart attack. But the last phrase—“We’ll grow old together”—entails a reunion in the afterlife. That may be a heartwarming concept, but the way this outro plays is far from heartwarming. The result of that comes from every individual part: how Steven gradually weakens his voice to simulate the process of dying, how the familiar guitar pattern (from the instrumental interludes) becomes even colder as it gets muddier, how the layers upon layers of vocals appear to push and pull at one another. Until everything shatters apart save for the ambulance of “Yo-de,” leaving the song to go into complete silence as the magnitude of what you just heard begins to register.
There are many reasons that “Heartattack In A Layby” hits listeners as hard as it does. But the biggest ones involve death and regrets. I normally don’t get too personal in these blog entries, but I’ve had brushes with both of them. Basically, I nearly died at the age of eight from puking a large amount of blood after doctors fudged up a tonsillectomy procedure. One thing which I’ll probably always remember from the night that it happened was that there was a feeling of woozy dread in my head. It was as if I didn’t know if I would stop throwing up blood. Nor whether or not it was because I had lost a fatal amount of blood. That constant feeling of what seems like imminent death puts me in a place to identify with the scenario of “Heartattack In A Layby” better than most of the other tracks on In Absentia. But the other quality—regrets—is something everyone can relate to as everyone has at least one regret. To merge the two in a single song makes this overwhelming in that it touches upon both a childhood fear and an adult fear at the same time—all while making the mix seem timeless. This song destroys me on the inside every time I listen to it, but it also gives me a slight sense of hope—hope that I’m not sharing the same fate as this song’s speaker. Somehow, that hope—even in a song as hopeless as this one—comes across as powerfully as its inverse.
Steven Wilson has written songs stronger than “Heartattack In A Layby.” But none of those songs—nor any other piece of music that I know of—has affected me as powerfully as “Heartattack In A Layby.” For that alone, this song is in my Top 5 Porcupine Tree songs. On the flip-side, I can’t think of a single song by Porcupine Tree that’ll be more uncomfortable to listen to than this one once Steven Wilson dies (hopefully a long time from now).
“Strip The Soul” (7:21)
While “Strip The Soul” probably isn’t the heaviest song on the album (“The Creator Has A Mastertape”), the song has the heaviest moment on the entire album: the last two minutes. But even before that, “Strip The Soul” maintains a nail-biting atmosphere (even in the quiet parts) that’s all-too-fitting for the subject matter: unmistakably about Fred West and with lyrics written from his point-of-view (not third-person omniscient like “The Creator Has A Mastertape”).
The first verse exhibits the extent of ONK’s depravity:
This is my home, this is my own, we don’t like no strangers.
Raise the kids good, beat the kids good, and tie them up.
Spread it wide, my wife, my life, push the camera deeper.
I can use, I abuse, my muse, I made them all.
While the lyrics of “Strip The Soul” are from ONK’s/Fred West’s perspective, the emphasis isn’t on his external self. Instead, it’s on ONK’s internal thoughts. For a recap of what he’s done, he’s started the actions of mass murder and torturing family members in “The Creator Has A Mastertape” and showed that he wasn’t beyond murdering those close to them if the events of “Heartattack In A Layby” are read in a certain light. If the impulse that has driven ONK to murder is one of immediate gratification, one would think that ONK would be satisfied after that. But that’s not how it works—he’s not going to stop because as one lyric of “The Creator Has A Mastertape” (“He captured and collected things”) entails, ONK will come up with any self-justification he can in order to live with his atrocities. ONK’s no different from Fred West in that both raised kids, had a wife, and lived in a nice house—but both were evil sadistic bastards. So much so that their children were viewed as possessions that he could submit to whatever physical and sexual abuses he wanted to indulge in…simply because he made these kids. That self-justification of things is an activity of what the twisted part of him finds habitual—this is the clearest evidence yet that the personality found in “Prodigal” fought a losing battle…or maybe not, as we’ll see in the next song.
As for “Spread it wide, my wife, my life, push the camera deeper,” there are multiple things to take from that. The idea of spreading “my wife” is obvious sexual connotation. But the idea of spreading wide “my life” speaks more to ONK’s/Fred’s need for escalating depravity, but there may not be a way for a human being to sink any lower than ONK already has. As for “push the camera deeper,” that relates to both ONK/Fred and his wife/Rose. This becomes apparent upon learning that Rose West serviced prostitution clients in a room of the West home and that Fred apparently had a peephole to her room. The peephole and the camera serve the same purpose: surveillance.
Regarding how “I can use, I abuse, my muse, I made them all” relates to the prior line, it outlines the extent of the self-centered depravity that ONK exhibits. What I mean is that not only are his wife and children (to him) possessions, but they that they are second to himself. If ONK snaps to the point where he kills all of them, he’s already told himself that he has the right to do so in the most brutal, inhuman fashion.
The chorus raises questions about the duality of ONK:
This machine is there to please.
Strip the soul, fill the hole.
A fire to feed, a belt to bleed.
Strip the soul, kill them all.
The first line of this reminds the listener of the fact that ONK’s/Fred’s not merely a sadist who’s pleased by the act of imposing harm and death upon others. ONK’s also ravenous in sexuality and imposing force upon others. By using language such as “This machine,” the element of force becomes so literal that ONK’s views his penis as a weapon. Which is an image that seems juvenile, but is brilliant in how it serves multiple purposes simultaneously—by associating his penis as a weapon described as “This machine,” it’s another piece of evidence pointing towards ONK’s dehumanization. That’s not to say that the victims of his rapes aren’t dehumanized as well, but their dehumanization is the result of trauma inflicted upon them. ONK’s dehumanization has been a slow burn throughout the whole of In Absentia and “Strip The Soul” marks the final step.
Alternatively, my claims that “This machine” is a phallic reference could just be me spouting total bullshit—the “machine” could just as easily be the pills. This interpretation makes it so that the unhinged side of ONK has degenerated to such a degree that he no longer cares if his pleasure derives from sadism or sexual gratification—he just wants it by any means.
The rest of the chorus reflects a battle between the unhinged and the human aspects of ONK. The human aspect of ONK has only been seen in “Prodigal” and “Trains,” so it has been consistently overpowered as the unhinged aspect has only grown more depraved. But “Collapse The Light Into Earth” entails that this little-seen human aspect of ONK is who ONK truly is and would be had he not been cursed with ‘an absence of the soul.’ The key phrases to understand in this are “Strip the soul,” “fill the hole,” and “kill them all”—all of which serve as metaphors. For “fill the hole,” that’s a want to find something which replaces the ‘absence of the soul.’ Given that the line follows “This machine is there to please,” the action of filling the hole is what initially drove ONK into raping his family members. In regards to “strip the soul,” the context of the album makes it so that the unhinged mentality wants to completely eradicate the human side (the soul) from himself. This is because with the soul gone, any sense of empathy goes away with it—without empathy, ONK can “kill them all” with complete sociopathy. That that hasn’t been done already shows that whenever the unhinged side of ONK overpowers ONK’s human side, ONK’s human side can still feel guilt over what he can’t truly control. Something like this makes both “Prodigal” and “Collapse The Light Into Earth” more poignant because (as the only songs on In Absentia sung from the human side of ONK) the speaker is wracked with guilt during them.
This idea of the war waging within ONK’s psyche remains present in the second verse:
They are not gone, they are not gone. They are only sleeping.
In graves, in ways, in clay, underneath the floor.
Building walls, overalls, getting bored, I got faulty wiring.
Brick it up now, brick it up now, but keep the bones.
That first line—“They are not gone, they are not gone. They are only sleeping”—is the human side being put in opposition to the unhinged aspect of the line that follows. This is important since it creates a sense of denial in ONK that he’s done anything wrong before the unhinged side reminds him of how it really turned out. However, the third line—“Building walls, overalls, getting bored, I got faulty wiring”—deepens the conundrum. Namely, it acknowledges something that differs ONK from Fred West—building walls out of bodies. This complicates things because the building process is an activity of the human side, even if the material used is obtained via the activities of the unhinged side. As for “overalls, getting bored,” I read that as the unhinged side getting bored with having to put up with the perceived banalities of the human side. But in that line, the word “overalls” instead of “overall” reinforces the unhinged/human struggle on a grammatical level—everything is breaking down. That breakdown—as the recurrent symbol of wiring/faulty wiring (see chorus of “Blackest Eyes”) indicates—is something that both the unhinged and the human sides of ONK are aware of at every moment. In fact, it may come sooner than either personality thinks. That fourth line’s there to remind us that despite the struggle, the unhinged side of ONK will overpower the human side as long as it has the materials to indulge in the murderous and sexually-depraved activities. Because “Collapse The Light Into Earth” is going to show us what happens in this struggle when those materials are taken away.
After those lines, the chorus comes again. However, a set of backup vocals utter these words:
(Do you want a western home in the rubble?)
There are several ways to read this line, but there’s a detail regarding how they’re sung that bears going over: that it’s said twice—once while nearly drowned-out by the main vocals and then once when the backup vocals are alone. That fact plays into one interpretation of the line—that it represents the human side of ONK trying to reason with the unhinged side. A reasoning by asking the unhinged side whether or not he wants to destroy the home since the aforementioned practice of putting bodies in the walls will have a deleterious long-term effect on the foundations. However, I think we know that that won’t work. The unhinged side of ONK has been far too gung-ho and arrogant to listen to the reasoning of the human aspect—something that’s been true even when ONK’s unhinged side wasn’t as depraved as it is in this song. There’s no reason to think that things will work now when ONK’s unhinged side has all the materials to indulge in his fullest depravity.
For an example of another interpretation, the word “western” has two meanings. The first meaning is the literal directional meaning while the second meaning makes this a direct reference to Fred West. Which makes it that ONK is Fred West, if you see it that way. However, the album doesn’t give ONK a name (hence the acronym), so interpreting ONK as Fred West is a matter of opinion.
Now that the last of the new lyrics are taken care of, the music of “Strip The Soul” should be addressed. This dour tale begins with a more note-heavy version of Colin’s bassline from “.3,” but played at a slightly-faster tempo (specifically, 155 BPM in 4/4). In particular, this bassline circles around like a snake. Meanwhile, Richard has synth sustains which feel like cold wind. Gavin’s drum beat consists of kick-pedal, snare hits, and hi-hats. But every so often, a rapid hit of three ghost snares will come from Gavin. This directly contrasts order and disorder in the music itself before Steven utters a word of the lyrics—order from the militaristic motion of the main beat and disorder from the ghost snares. While Steven doesn’t play guitar in the first verse, the second verse has shimmering Floyd-esque touches of clean-toned guitar peppered throughout. Now that I let the cat out of the bag, this Colin/Richard/Gavin rhythm forms the backbone of the song’s verses.
While most songs on In Absentia go from the verse directly into the chorus, “Strip The Soul” opts to put something in-between (at about 0:54). This does share some traits with the chorus proper: namely Colin’s eight-note bass riff which goes into higher frequencies and the change to a 6/4 time signature. But what makes this a transition are the stop-start crunch of Steven’s guitar chords and Gavin’s clanging drums. Both of which give this section the feeling that ONK’s winding himself up—the worst actions are yet to come.
Those worst actions are articulated in the chorus (around 1:03), which Steven delivers with a Nine Inch Nails-esque distorted voice filter—emphasizing the inhumanity of the unhinged aspect of ONK. As for Gavin’s drumwork, the 6/4 time signature combined with the simple (no ghost notes) beats provide a wandering feel that’s absent from the 4/4 verses. That Gavin starts every measure of the chorus with a crash cymbal may be indicative of the human aspect of ONK trying (in vain) to get through. Colin’s riff remains the same as that of the transition, but now it’s in lock-step with Steven’s new guitar riff. That guitar riff—which consists of four chords—dominates the mix and may just be the most evil-sounding riff which Steven’s plays on the whole album. It’s a riff which overpowers the listener in a manner akin to how the unhinged aspect of ONK overpowers the human aspect—as well as how unhinged-ONK overpowers his victims. It’s a dark and grimy monster of a riff that creates something new out of what might have been generic.
Apart from the aforementioned shimmering guitar flourishes of Steven’s, the second verse is near-identical to that of the first. The only difference being that one can clearly hear a backing vocalist singing along. But the second chorus has the “Do you want a western home in the rubble?” lyric as it’s only differing aspect. Musically, it’s the same as before.
Where “Strip The Soul” deviates from the verse/chorus structure comes right after the second chorus wraps up (about 2:24). There’s an eight-measure sequence that’s played twice (still in 6/4). During this whole thing, Gavin plays a similar beat to that of the verse, but using ride cymbal instead of hi-hat. For the first seven measures of this sequence, Colin plays the same pattern as in the chorus, but changes things up in the eighth measure. Steven’s guitar plays a droning set of sustains for the first seven measures, but plays three ominous-sounding chords on measure eight. This whole thing so far has been fairly quiet, but after the second round of the sequence ends (around 3:02), gears are changed. The droning sustains are on overdriven electric guitar and there’s also a rhythm guitar playing dread-inducing chordal sustains. Colin’s bass mirrors that rhythm guitar while Gavin returns to the chorus rhythm.
Once that section finishes (about 3:24), all the instruments drop out except for an acoustic guitar which plays the chorus riff. Which still sounds pretty evil on an acoustic guitar. But what really makes this menacing is that Steven delivers the chorus in a sinister-sounding whisper that sounds so thick that one can practically hear him salivating into the mic. For good measure, Gavin pops in a couple times for some quick drum fills with kick-pedal and toms.
The band returns (around 3:43) right after Steven whispers the chorus once, Gavin and Colin return to the chorus rhythm (albeit the former starts to change things up with the rhythm), but Steven’s chorus guitar riff doesn’t return. Instead, a rhythmic pattern of strumming that’s drenched in wah-wah—the breaking point has definitely been passed for ONK. The unexpected return of Richard at about 3:53 factors into this as he plays some freaky-sounding electric piano in a mini-solo while Steven whispers the chorus again. Only this time, the whispers feel almost lost in the mix—as if the madness building up within drowns out outside stimuli. Once Richard stops playing his ‘solo,’ Steven plays a brief guitar solo at around 4:12. This guitar solo uses similar atonal techniques as the ones in “Gravity Eyelids” and “The Creator Has A Mastertape,” but it’s the clearest-sounding one of those—it doesn’t sound like Steven’s using anywhere near the amount of effects-related trickery to achieve this solo as he did in either of the other two. That this solo comes across clearer in the mix than either of those solos did means one thing: this moment marks the clearest audio expression of ONK’s brutality in the entire album. Towards the end of the solo, Steven can be heard spouting the chorus. This time, it’s sung at a slightly-higher pitch than earlier, something which imbues it with a greater sense of urgency.
After that urgent use of the chorus (ending at about 4:30), Steven’s guitar solo ends and guitar goes back to the chorus riff. Only this time, Richard chimes in with that distorted electric piano from earlier and adds a few chords which further darken the atmosphere of the track. Then, the song shifts at around the 4:40 mark back to the instrumental break from 3:02. But it’s not quite the same because while that section was in 6/4, this one’s played in 5/4. While Colin and Steven play similar things to the earlier passage, the time signature change demands that the note lengths be truncated. Gavin plays a beat driven by kick-pedal, snare, and crash cymbal, but has ample opportunity for fills which use quick sets of kick-pedal, some flourishes of ride cymbal and hi-hat, and the thunderous slamming of two toms at once. What really adds to the atmosphere of this section comes from a droning sustain by Richard which brings the tension to unbearable levels.
Then (about 5:10), the song appears to end given that there’s nothing but an eerie-sounding set of low-pitched string-like synths from Richard’s playing in an 8/4 time signature. However, the song’s not done yet and there’s a heavy section right around the corner. But before that section, the break has something of note which a listener can barely hear (this is more prominent in the music video than in the actual song). That something sounds a lot like a phone conversation—most likely someone alerting the police on ONK.
Once the band returns (about 5:35), a listener can now see the effects of the 8/4 time signature—by stretching it out and slowing down the tempo, the final effects of ONK’s madness are crystal-clear in the music. This dirge-like pace makes Steven’s guitar and Colin’s bass pummel the listener with a Sabbath-like heaviness. While “The Creator Has A Mastertape” may be a heavier song than “Strip The Soul,” this last section of “Strip The Soul” marks the heaviest moment on In Absentia—only parts of Fear of a Blank Planet and The Incident out-heavy this. Not helping matters in the latter parts of this outro are Richard’s dread-inducing synths. Neither does the slow-burning drum pattern from Gavin that’s frequently broken up by crash-cymbal—a ringing which reminds of the urgency and futility of the human aspect of ONK’s struggle against that of the unhinged.
Now for the use of the chorus in the heavy outro—it may use the same words, but the connotations in this section are not the same as before. To get what I mean, let’s assume that the break represents a chunk of time passing (no more than a single day). During which the phone conversation happens and at this heavy section, the police come right to ONK’s house to arrest him. Also during this time, ONK’s done everything the unhinged side felt necessary to strip the soul and to fill the hole. But remember what I said about this being a continuous escalation? Yeah, that doesn’t go away—it’s a never-ending process because an ‘absence of the soul’ can never truly be filled. Sooner or later, that escalation actually does strip the soul…and the mind with it. To the point where ONK can’t even tell if he’s killing or not. “Strip The Soul” concludes with the police apprehending ONK when he can’t tell what he’s won, much less if there’s anything left for him to do. He may not even know the extent of his insanity. But—as the next song indicates—he knows it’s his own fault.
As a piece of music, “Strip The Soul” manages to encompass both brute force and intelligence in ways which aren’t immediately apparent. The song also gives an audio demonstration of just how fucked up ONK’s state-of-mind has become. Despite all this, “Strip The Soul” serves as another great song from In Absentia that may just be one of the album highlights.
“Collapse The Light Into Earth” (5:54)
By all accounts, “Strip The Soul” constitutes the end of the story which this album tells. But “Collapse The Light Into Earth” acts more as a coda than anything. As elaborated earlier, the arrest of ONK/Fred West occurred at the end of “Strip The Soul.” The function of “Collapse The Light Into Earth” in the narrative demands further context in the Fred West case. Namely, his in-prison suicide and the contents of his suicide note.
As far as the music is concerned, “Collapse The Light Into Earth” is a simple piano ballad. Apart from a string buildup in the middle and a single feedback-drenched guitar chord, this song consists of Steven’s voice and a sequence of eighth-note piano chords (a total of five chords, repeated for a measure before switching to the next measure). With a 3/4 time signature at 75 BPM. Musically, “Collapse The Light Into Earth” may be the simplest song on In Absentia (moreso than "Heartattack In A Layby"). Lyrically, the song (two verses with four lines each plus a one line chorus) can be read in a variety of ways in and out of the context of the In Absentia narrative.
To start the in-context analysis of the song, let’s look at this first verse:
I won’t shiver in the cold.
I won’t let the shadows take their toll.
I won’t cover my head in the dark.
And I won’t forget you when we part.
There are two things of note regarding the song as a whole. The first comes from “I won’t let the shadows take their toll,” the song’s second line. The first being that there’s a similarity to part of a message that was drawn in Fred West’s cell right next to where his suicide note was found: “Rest in peace where no shadow falls.” The wording of that phrase (and it’s similarity to a line of the song) makes me suggest that this song can be read as the speaker writing out a suicide note.
The other main detail informs the structure of the song: this is human-ONK speaking in this song, not unhinged-ONK. Remember how I said back in the “Strip The Soul” write-up about what would happen if unhinged-ONK were stripped of outlets for his depravity? That’s exactly what has happened in this song—while in prison (where ONK would be in a cell alone, with no people to kill or bodies to violate), human-ONK comes to the fore. But like “Prodigal,” he knows that unhinged-ONK will return and take over him. Since we established in “Strip The Soul” that human-ONK’s aware of what unhinged-ONK’s doing, it would be understandable that human-ONK would be able to feel guilt and remorse over unhinged-ONK’s actions. In fact, he feels that unhinged-ONK would be even worse than before he returns—possibly for good this time. However, human-ONK can’t get rid of unhinged-ONK. Unless, in an act of defiance, human-ONK commits suicide in his cell.
While suicide is undoubtedly a sad topic, there are also instances in various cultures where an action that amounts to suicide is considered heroic instead of tragic. Three such scenarios are falling on a grenade during war, the ancient Japanese tradition of seppuku (which was performed as an ‘honorable’ way for a samurai to avoid being taken prisoner, where they’d likely be tortured or killed), or heroic self-sacrifice (with or without an element of ‘taking you with me’). In a way, human-ONK’s act constitutes as an act of heroic self-sacrifice because he knows both the depravity of unhinged-ONK and the cost to his own yet he chooses to take unhinged-ONK with him because that’s preferable to what unhinged-ONK will do if he’s allowed to return.
I did say that human-ONK’s suicide is committed with as an act of defiance. And defiant is the tone which I would describe the lines of this verse. The lines “I won’t shiver in the cold” and “I won’t cover my head in the dark” can definitely be read as human-ONK telling the dormant unhinged-ONK that he’s breaking free and taking charge so that unhinged-ONK won’t re-emerge, overtake him, and do more harm that what’s already been done. As for “And I won’t forget you when we part,” that line acknowledges that what unhinged-ONK has done (rape, necrophilia, murder) has traumatized human-ONK. That line also (with the word “part”) indicates that death itself will split the two personalities—human-ONK and unhinged-ONK are two separate souls inhabiting one body.
The one-line chorus is multi-faceted and warrants a look because it’s denser than it looks:
Collapse the Light Into Earth.
Given that we’ve established that ONK will die, there are two death-related ways that one can interpret the title of the song. If one wants to put religion into how one reads the song, one should consider that despite Steven being an atheist, he’s always had an interest in what people believe and how people use it to function in their day-to-day lives. He wouldn’t call you stupid or cruel unless one imposes their religious beliefs upon other people in the way that organized religion has a tendency to do. As to how all that relates to the song title, “Collapse The Light Into Earth” can serve as a reminder from unhinged-ONK that human-ONK is going to hell.
But that’s assuming that they have a soul…and that they would share the same soul. If they don’t share the same soul (that is, if the separate personalities are split into different souls), is human-ONK responsible for the crimes that unhinged-ONK committed? That raises serious questions because one can state that throughout the album, human-ONK didn’t do enough to try to stop unhinged-ONK. On the other hand, one can also suggest (from the last verse of “Prodigal” and the second verse of “Strip The Soul”) that human-ONK did try, albeit unsuccessfully.
A third way of looking at the title would entail Steven’s atheism. In this interpretation, the title still involves ONK’s death. However, the body becomes part of the earth. Meaning the light (human-ONK) gets the same treatment as unhinged-ONK. This way has no hellish damnation or possibility for redemption involved, but human-ONK’s suicide still carries the element of heroic self-sacrifice in that he’s eliminating a threat (unhinged-ONK) even if doing so involves his own demise. In a way, there’s an echo to Dr. Jekyll fatally poisoning himself to eliminate Mr. Hyde in the end of Robert Louis Stevenson’s "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." While that may be a cliché, Steven does a good job at keeping the cliché hidden—at least until this point.
The song’s second and final verse has some irregularities to it that are worth going over:
I won’t heal given time.
I won’t try to change your mind.
I won’t feel better in the cold light of day.
But I wouldn’t stop you if you wanted to stay.
The first irregularity involves perspective because it’s ambiguous whether this is told from human-ONK or unhinged-ONK. But this ends up making these four lines have several different readings. One entails unhinged-ONK learning of human-ONK’s plan to commit suicide and accepting it. Another is the same perspective, but reads “But I wouldn’t stop you if you wanted to stay” as an attempt to talk human-ONK out of it despite the latter’s already having made up his mind.
The most complex interpretation is the third one, which concerns human-ONK’s perspective and makes lines 1 and 3 a reflection of the trauma inflicted by unhinged-ONK’s actions. That same interpretation renders “I won’t try to change your mind” into a statement that human-ONK’s aware of what unhinged-ONK thinks about the former’s suicidal plan, but also a declaration of indifference as to what unhinged-ONK thinks. This means that human-ONK’s dead-set on his planned suicide. However, the line “But I wouldn’t stop you if you wanted to stay” divides this interpretation into a couple of sub-interpretations. The first being that human-ONK simply doesn’t want to be chained to unhinged-ONK anymore and doesn’t care about removing evil from the world. The second (and my preferred sub-interpretation) entails that human-ONK still commits suicide in order to rid the world of unhinged-ONK, but doesn’t mind if the two remain one soul because the two have been inseparable since the start. And even if human-ONK’s final act redeems that aspect (making unhinged-ONK go to Heaven or a heaven-like place), unhinged-ONK would be harmless because something that’s already dead cannot be killed a second time. As for worries that unhinged-ONK would try to rape women angels, the ‘can’t die twice’ rule seems like something that would empower women to stop potential assailants—it removes the threat of physical harm that sometimes scares women into being raped. I imagine if that threat of physical harm were removed, there would be a lot of people who would utilize that removal to their advantage.
But enough of that tangent on rape and angels. The whole point I was getting at with human-ONK only wanting unhinged-ONK off planet Earth also implies a sense of fatalism. Namely that because they’ve been inseparable because of the ‘absence of the soul,’ in unhinged-ONK, human-ONK goes through with suicide believing that any potential afterlife won’t be any different. That perhaps the choice (if there is one) to remain one soul or split into two can be made with the same overpowering dynamics that allowed unhinged-ONK to reign supreme in songs like “Strip The Soul.” In this case, human-ONK’s act of suicide is like Huck Finn’s decision to free Jim. Both go through with their actions believing that they’re going to Hell and both don’t know if that’s guaranteed. Given this song’s connection with faith, the metaphysical, and the mechanics of what occurs to spirits after a person’s death, the second verse of “Collapse The Light Into Earth” has several potential meanings—none of which can ever be known to be the ‘true’ meaning of the song. There’s no way to know the answers to the questions which the song poses because there’s no way to come back to life after one’s own death.
While the second chorus has the same words (“Collapse The Light Into Earth”) as the first, they don’t mean the same thing. That’s because of what occurs after the chorus (which we’ll get to in the music portion of the write-up). The context of which makes clear that the second chorus marks the moment where human-ONK’s suicide attempt is put into motion.
Now back to the start of the song for a look at the musical structure of “Collapse The Light Into Earth.” The song begins with the sequence of piano chords that function as the song’s core motif. Looking at the album credits, this piano’s played by Steven, not Richard. As for the chord sequence itself, it starts with chords that sound hopeful but the latter chords are tinged with melancholy. Given what the song entails for the human-ONK/unhinged-ONK relations, that mixing of major and minor chords (a quality with a predecessor found in the acoustic rhythm sequence of Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain” [1971]) provides a perfect relation between music and lyrical content. This pattern continues throughout the entire song. As for the vocals, Steven delivers them with a considerable amount of reverb (noticeable from an audible echo just after he finishes a word). This gives a sense that apart from the aspects of ONK, ONK’s completely alone in this situation. At least this is true of the verses. The choruses are delivered in a tone which make them seem like a ray of hope. Given the limitations of ONK’s situation with mental health, the sad thing is that the suicide entailed by the song may be the only ray of hope for human-ONK. While that may be an extremely insensitive thing to say, the context of this situation doesn’t allow room for many other options and the truly lamentable thing is that those other options would only continue unhinged-ONK’s monstrous rage.
While the second verse (around 1:28) has the same instrumentation and vocal delivery as that of the first, there’s the presence of a mellotron-like in the mix. Such an addition heightens the melancholy of the situation in this song but also sets things in motion for a change—in song-structure and in physical/meta-physical state. The second chorus (about 2:16) only adds to this sense of escalation by adding a string section and by harmonizing the chorus. The song has gradually crescendoed in preparation for something.
That something arrives around 3:04 via an extended build-up section. Here, the strings take prominence while the keyboard pattern serves the functions that a rhythm section normally would: the pulse of the song. These strings sound more ecstatic and joyous than anything else in the song, but they never lose the twinges of melancholy which are shared by the piano chords. Then (around 3:28), a bunch of choral ‘ah’s’ get added into the mix. This section can come across as sounding akin to a Phil Spector-esque ‘Wall of Sound,’ but Steven’s production proves a crucial part in differentiating itself from that: every instrument is completely audible in the mix at all times no matter how many there are. Everything remains crystal-clear despite the multitude of vocal layerings (including a reprise of the chorus), the presence of orchestral swells, and the pulse of piano. Despite that, in a section as bombastic as this, it’s easy to get lost in all the instruments that are playing at once or to just zero in on one instrument and stick with it. This build-up remains constant until around 5:04, where the feedback-laden guitar chord arrives and every instrument except that and the piano die off. Slowly, the piano grows dimmer in volume until a sustain of the last chord makes the song end in nothing.
Is it just me, but does the tone of the feedback-laden guitar chord sound like a flatlining EEG? If so, that exact moment marks the deaths of human-ONK and unhinged-ONK. As for why it took such a while in the song, there are two possibilities (both of which involve Fred West’s suicide method). The first indicates that the first chorus marks the wrapping of an improvised rope (from a blanket and tags nicked from prison laundry bags) around his neck, the second chorus indicating the binding of this ‘rope’ to a door handle and a window catchment, and the build-up the asphyxiation itself—all in real-time. The second possibility is that it’s not in real-time and that that whole process is entailed in the build-up after the second chorus.
For the longest time, I always wanted to deem “Collapse The Light Into Earth” as distanced from the rest of In Absentia. This was because I felt that ascribing it to the same perspective as the rapist in “Gravity Eyelids” and the murder of “Strip The Soul” came across as trying to justify such actions, but without offering a clear piece of evidence indicating that he’s full of shit. However, the split personality implications of both “Prodigal” and “Strip The Soul” opened up new layers to this song’s lyrics. Layers that changed the meaning to the song and transformed “Collapse The Light Into Earth” from a tonally-unfitting capper to a profoundly-moving closing track. Now, I can’t see any other track which would’ve ended In Absentia better than “Collapse The Light Into Earth” does.
Final Thoughts:
From the pulse-pounding opening riff of “Blackest Eyes” to the moving finale of “Collapse The Light Into Earth,” In Absentia has always resonated with me the strongest out of Porcupine Tree’s discography. There is not a single bad or even mediocre song on the entire album. While the songs written from ONK committing acts of rape, necrophilia, and murder are disturbing, the fact that the music of those songs paint an equally-horrific picture indicates that Steven wrote this album without the intention of glorifying the actions depicted. There is no explicit condemnation here, either—leaving listeners to make up their own minds.
As for what I think, I think In Absentia paints a powerful, disturbing, haunting, and sometimes moving portrait of a serial killer’s life—starting at youth, going into his first crimes, and detailing his descent into madness. At the same time, In Absentia also asks us how the depraved become depraved and if depravity is innate, is reform possible? That last question has two different answers (one in the “Prodigal”/“.3” sequence and one in “Collapse The Light Into Earth”), but I think Steven leaves it up to the listener which is more valid.
While I would recommend Stupid Dream and Lightbulb Sun for anyone new to Porcupine Tree over this one, In Absentia should be listened to if you find yourself liking either of those albums. There isn’t a single note or lyric on the entire album that I would change. There isn’t such a thing as a perfect album, but In Absentia is close. So close that Steven has only reached this level of greatness again in several songs and in one album. But that’s not until much later. For now, it’s In Absentia—an album that may be deemed a towering masterwork in the decades to come.
Next Time:
Porcupine Tree - "Deadwing" (March 28, 2005)