Steven Wilson Retrospective Part #22: Steven Wilson - "Grace For Drowning" (September 26,

Listen to Grace for Drowning on Spotify

Steven Wilson’s second solo album (and first following the dissolution of Porcupine Tree) might mark the biggest departure from the established sound seen from his projects up until this point. But in other respects, it’s a natural extension of the sound established on Insurgentes. The new element comes from the fact that Grace For Drowning has Steven’s most explicit flirtation with jazz forms thus far. According to Steven, this stems from his remastering process of classic progressive albums from artists such as King Crimson (especially their 1970 album Lizard)—who had a significant jazz influence in their sound. So that influence started to seep into Steven’s sound—especially on tracks such as “Remainder The Black Dog” and “Raider II,” songs with lengthy instrumental sections which make extensive use of the improvisational techniques of jazz music. At the same time, Grace for Drowning contains some of Steven’s most classically-influenced music in the form of “Postcard” and “Deform to Form a Star.”

One distinctive thing about the album’s structure is—that despite having no unifying concept—Grace for Drowning divides the two discs (yes, it’s a double album) by the tone of the sound. Disc One has (with the exception of “Remainder The Black Dog”) has the more conventional song structures of the two discs while Disc Two (with the exception of “Like Dust I Have Cleared From My Eye”) has Steven working in more experimental territory—the most radical experiment being the 22-minute improvisation known as “Raider II.” But even on the more conventional songs, Steven employs unusual instrumentation: autoharp, glockenspiel, and harmonium are only three examples.

Additionally, Grace for Drowning also boasts the most extensive list of musical guests on any Steven Wilson album to date. Owing to Steven’s inspiration from King Crimson’s Lizard, Steven aimed to find the best group of musicians that he could find. Like with Insurgentes, they’ll be mentioned on a track-by-track basis. But there are a total of thirteen guest musicians with parts on the album—eight of which appear on multiple tracks. This time, there’s no guest vocalists—Steven does all the vocals himself.

• Disc One

• “Grace for Drowning” (2:06) [instrumental]

Serving as an introduction to the album, “Grace For Drowning” is a simple and serene piece of music that I’ve used to fall asleep a couple of times. That’s not a knock against it, but a complement that Steven can capture mood so effectively with what seems like minimal instrumentation. The function on the album is as an overture to the first disc, similar to how “Belle de Jour” does the same for the second disc.

Regarding guest musicians, Jordan Rudess (from Dream Theater) appears and plays an outright beautiful piano part. Meanwhile, there are a choral set of ‘la’ vocals from a multi-tracked set of Steven’s voice.

• “Sectarian” (7:41) [instrumental]

Another instrumental track, “Sectarian” showcases the technical prowess of Steven’s cast of musicians in fine form. In fact, this track is also the first where the King Crimson influence reveals itself. That’s true of sudden shifts in tone, intensity, and volume. That’s also true of instrumentation uncommon for rock music: autoharp, saxophone, clarinet, and Chapman stick all feature prominently.

On the topic of guest musicians, Steven plays the autoharp parts—not so much a guest as a showcase of the man’s versatility. But the saxophone here is occupied by Wilson regular Theo Travis, who we’ll see many times throughout the album. Meanwhile, the clarinet parts are performed by British session musician Ben Castle while Nic France takes the credit for drums. The most notable name going forward is that of Nick Beggs playing Chapman stick—a name to pay attention since he’ll be the standard bassist for every Steven Wilson solo album going forward.

In terms of musical structure, “Sectarian” begins with a dissonant-sounding set of rhythmically-jagged chords strummed by Steven which form the song’s leitmotif—something which gives a listener the sense that something’s coming, but will arrive unexpectedly (just like you’re not expecting something so tense to come from just an acoustic guitar). Not long after that (at 0:23), the rest of the band enters—most notably Nic’s jazz-trained drumming providing a subtler feel for rhythm than Gavin or Chris ever did. Still, things are at a low volume.

Until the switch from acoustic to electric guitar (at 1:08) arrives, that is—a moment signaling the arrival of Nick Begg’s meaty-sounding Chapman stick (easily carries the weight of a second guitar) as well as more conventional cymbal-snare-kick patterns from Nic’s drums and rhythmic stabs of guitar chords from Steven. It’s truly a moment that can jolt unprepared listeners. But it leads (at 1:35) into a figure of lead guitar (might be autoharp or some exotic instrument) that sounds relieving when laid over the menacing rhythm section—and that’s mostly due to the bright tone of the instrument playing lead in this section. After a mellotron harmonizes with the last notes of the lead figure, Theo erupts into a saxophone solo (at 2:06) that aims for a similar quality as the previous lead figure, but the natural sound of a saxophone imbues the solo with a different effect: apocalyptic and melancholic.

Theo’s sax solo persists until a set of rhythmic hard stops (at 2:30) cut the air, go silent for a bit, and cut again before a reprise of earlier lead figure occurs (at 2:39). Before any sort of formula can be pegged down, a break in the action (at 3:03) enters the fray. Here, some soft taps of cymbals from Nic (in the 7/4 rhythm from the rest of the song) accompany Steven plucking a stringed instrument (either the guitar or an autoharp) before flute joins in shortly afterwards—the entire section feels soothing and lulls the listener into a false sense of security. False being an apt word since (at 3:36) there’s now an abrupt section of what sounds like horns (but is probably just a horde of woodwinds that may/may not be pitch-shifted…hard to tell) playing a low-pitched melody that registers as ominous. If there’s any section of “Sectarian” that comes across as excessive or unnecessary, it’s this one since it comes out-of-nowhere and if it weren’t for Steven’s encouragement (in the role as bandleader) of improvisation in his session players, he probably wouldn’t have kept this section of the song.

One simple drum fill from Nic transfers that horn-based section into a quieter section built (at 3:54) upon Nic’s ghost-snare laden drumming and Nick Beggs’s fluid lines on the Chapman stick. All the while, this forms the bedrock for a lengthy keyboard solo that also sounds ripped straight from classic jazz records. Once the keyboard solo goes on for a while and begins to wind down (at 5:03), the distinctly-rustic presence of mellotrons round out the sound and feel like they were a missing puzzle piece to this rhythmic pattern.

Things appear (at 5:49) to come to a sudden stop as Nic’s crash-cymbal signals the mellotron to come to a dead-stop. However, Theo emerges on his flute at the exact moment that Nic strikes his crash-cymbal, filling the void left by the absence of the mellotron. Any soothing effects prove short-lived since the ‘hard-stop’ rhythm re-emerges (at 6:01) followed by another reprise (at 6:10 of a now-familiar lead figure. But this time, it doesn’t transition into another big instrumental section like before. Instead (at 6:44), a rather low-key clarinet melody glides over the top of the section of Nic softly tapping his cymbals (from 3:03). This persists for a while until the track ends on sounds in nature such as the chirping of birds.

• “Deform to Form a Star” (7:51)

If one were to ask me to describe “Deform to Form a Star” in a single word, that would be ‘beautiful’ and there’s a strong argument to be made that it registers as Steven’s most beautiful piece of music. As well as one of his most uplifting. That’s in spite of this song owing its existence to tragedy in Steven’s personal life: the passing of his father earlier in 2011 due to cancer. In fact, that tragedy contributes to the autumnal feeling of the whole album. See, Steven’s father—an electrical engineer—contributed important groundwork for his son’s musical future. One way was that a multi-track tape machine was how Steven got his start at developing production techniques. Another way came from a Christmas morning gift exchange between Steven’s parents. The gifts were two albums that Steven would cite as foundational to his musical development: Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon (gifted to father) and Donna Summer’s Love to Love You Baby (gifted to mother). If that weren’t enough evidence, the booklet for Grace for Drowning has a brief bit of text which dedicates the album to the memory of Steven’s late father.

However, the lyrics aren’t directly about Steven’s father or his death. Instead, the song serves as Steven finding solace in his life after loss. In some ways, it’s an embrace of life.

Musically, “Deform to Form a Star” contains an astonishingly lush atmosphere. The song begins with a thirty-second piano solo from Jordan Rudess before launching into a ballad form driven by piano and woodwinds for the first verse. After Steven sings the opening lines, bass and flute accompany his second stanza of lyrics—the rest of the band doesn’t arrive until the chorus starts more than two minutes into the song. Once that point arrives, the band continues to play in a relaxed fashion that compliments that piano arrangement at the core of the song. Even with two guitar solos, the primary focus almost always centers on the piano and Steven’s vocals—backed by arrangements of mellotron and woodwinds that imbue the song with a rich flavor. This is a track which flows like a song that’s five minute or less, but pays dividends for repeated listens since there’s a lot of sonic detail in this that one can find with a good set of headphones.

A variety of guest appearances coat “Deform to Form a Star.” First of all, Jordan Rudess returns for piano parts—introducing the song with an amazing piano solo. Second, Tony Levin (King Crimson; Liquid Tension Experiment) appears on bass guitar. Third, Nic France re-appears on drums. Fourth, Theo Travis plays the clarinet parts of this track.

Following a classically-tinged piano solo from Jordan Rudess, Steven arrives with these opening lyrics:

Oh once in a while I learn how to smile. Horses, shadows, and rain on stone.

No god here I'm sure. This must be the cure For all this carrion and aimless drift.

All that context regarding Steven’s father comes full-swing with the first two lines: “Oh once in a while/I learn how to smile.” Disregarding the intermittent quality of the phrase “once in a while,” the meat of analysis centers on the fact of the speaker having to “learn how to smile.” Such a detail informs listeners that the impact of the death of the speaker’s father left such a void that smiles had to be faked. Alternatively, one can read “learn how to smile” as the process of recovery following the loss of someone close to the speaker—suggesting that the speaker’s words are retrospect.

Whereas the feelings of Steven from the death of his father were the concerns of the prior two lines, things are more concrete in the line “Horses, shadows, and rain on stone.” Judging from the imagery that evokes horse-drawn hearses, mourners clad in black, and raindrops smacking upon gravestones, this clearly presents the scene of a funeral. It’s definitely that of Steven’s father, which means that the entirety of the lyrics to “Deform to Form A Star” consist of Steven’s reflections made in the immediate aftermath of dad’s death.

One such reflection that’s a major theme in this song comes about via the line “No god here I’m sure.” Sure, Steven’s a staunch atheist, but any quote declaring his lack of faith dates beyond 2011. This suggest that while Steven’s always had some lingering doubts about religion (anyone who’s written lyrics to songs such as “Even Less,” “Halo,” or “The Blind House” probably wasn’t writing them from a place of devout faith), but the experience of his father’s death confirms the idea that there can’t be a God. Alternatively, “here” leaves the idea of God open. However, it tempers that by stating that if there’s a God, He’s so divorced from mortal matters that He’s beyond having any relation to on this plane of existence.

Steven’s ending lines to this verse—“This must be the cure/For all this carrion and aimless drift”—present a vivid image. One ponders what “This” is in the lyrics, but that involves a nothingness after death—except for becoming one with the natural world, an idea that’s expanded upon in the chorus. However, the autobiographical slant of the lyrics has a hole in the lyrics when factoring this notion and applying it to “must,” a word conveying a self-assured quality. The autobiographical quality of Steven’s atheism (and the conclusions of “No god here I’m sure”) can be clouded with as much doubt as religious belief because just as an atheist can remain skeptical of religion-based notions of the afterlife, the fact that no-one can know what comes after death while we’re alive makes the ‘nothing after death’ (which Steven believes) an equally-skeptical notion. However, the ‘nothing’ remains referenced as an objective reality in “the cure,” a wording that appears to paint humanity as a disease. Such a notion carries over into “all this carrion,” where the fact that humans are the only species with a self-awareness about their own morality means that the knowledge of death constitutes a slow death in itself. That self-awareness of mortality influences everything humans do and the randomized nature of “aimless drift” means that a species of over seven billion people remains unpredictable in how each person acts.

Steven’s second verse has some not-so simple lyrics, as well:

Retreat from the begging And invites to the wedding. Revelation means nothing here.

In time we forget our Need to devour All the stories of tortured souls.

A set of two lines like “Retreat from the begging/And invites to the wedding” carries two explicitly-religious notions wrapped up in contrasts. First, there’s “Retreat from the begging,” a discouragement of Christ-like suffering to get a better afterlife—something which makes sense given Steven thinks that there’s nothing after death. The other detail “invites to the wedding” functions as the bigger contrast: that of the celebration of life being contrasted with the memorial-based implications of the funeral. Both are also church-based ceremonies. However, the same phrase may also serve a secondary autobiographical function: a possible reference to the 2003 wedding of Mikael Akerfelt (the founder/guitarist/vocalist of Swedish progressive metal band Opeth and a close friend of Steven Wilson’s since 2001), an event where Steven sang, played acoustic guitar, and acted as Mikael’s best-man.

Another line which critiques religion involves “Revelation means nothing here.” Here, the name of a book of the Bible is rendered insignificant. And not just any book, it’s the end of the Bible where Judgement occurs. Still, Steven (or the speaker or both) states that the Bible is meaningless. A more charitable reading indicates that the Bible’s meaninglessness is because the book itself isn’t the direct word of God. Instead, it’s the filtration of that world by those who wrote it down in Hebrew, then those who translated it into Latin, and eventually English. If there were ever any way of knowing the original meaning of the Bible, there’s no way of knowing now. It’s only another way that on “here” (Earth), the present time and place remain detached from any ‘divine’ matters.

Regarding Steven’s word-choice in ending this verse, “In time we forget our/Need to devour/All the stories of tortured souls” are three lines containing a lot of meaning. First, “In time” entails that no state-of-mind experienced by humans last permanently. Partly because by “forget,” one grows and develops enough as a person through the changes of a lifetime that an older person won’t feel the “need” as intensely as a younger person. As for “our/Need to devour” (aside from how it’s curiously split across two lines), by likening knowledge to a hunger, the phrase ‘knowledge is power’ becomes morphed into a perverse statement. But perhaps forgoing that need proves the wiser path, since “all” indicates that such a need has no ending and entails an all-encompassing facet that’s impossible for any human to achieve. Which leads to the curious phrase that the verse ends: “stories of tortured souls.” That phrase becomes part-and-parcel with anyone concerned with ambition and/or the state of the world (particularly the modern world). However, that phrase also functions as an apt description of some of Steven’s common lyrical territory. So here, Steven applies this whole phrase to himself in the wake of his father’s demise—chastising himself for his former focus. This suggests that Steven—either lyrically or with how he functions in life—wants to move on to something else, but can’t quite do it yet.

The chorus of “Deform to Form a Star” might serve as the album’s most bombastic:

Crawl into your arms. Become the night forever. Coiled and close, the moment froze. Deform to form a star. Here on earth together, I got time to share and a well-used stare.

One curious detail comes about in the first line: “Crawl into your arms.” Namely that the identity of “your” proves ambiguous. Therefore, the defeatist implications of “Crawl” refers to either Steven to his father, Steven’s father to Mother Nature, or humanity to Mother Nature. Granted, the implications of this chorus leaves all three possible simultaneously.

With those implications develop to the second line of the chorus: “Become the night forever.” In this line, “Become the night” reiterates the ‘death as nothingness’ idea which Steven himself believes. However, by linking it to the day/night cycle, this ‘death as nothingness’ idea becomes equated with nature.

That’s the same idea made into imagery in the line “Coiled and close, the moment froze.” With “Coiled and close,” that’s the notion of every molecule that composed all life that had ever lived on Earth end up going to a compact space within nature. As for “the moment froze,” one should consider that the molecules of a person re-absorbed into nature are those of a person at the time of his/her/their death—applicable to both Steven’s dad and anyone who has lost someone close to them.

Now, the song’s titular refrain—“Deform to form a star”—carries some weight. First, “Deform” restates the connotations of the last line while stating that the decomposition process is a deforming of molecules. However, the weight of this line rests upon the phrase “form a star.” A curious wording since stars are celestial and not found on Earth. Unless if the line refers to a metaphorical star. Namely, that the memory of a deceased person burns as brightly as a star in those close to them. Heck, this idea’s also applicable towards influences—just look at some interpretations of the title track to David Bowie’s Blackstar.

The manner Steven ends the chorus with the lines “Here on Earth together,/I got time to share and a well-used stare” proves curious yet direct. For starters, the word “together” provides (if death is a return to nature) a sentiment akin to William Cullen Bryant’s 1816 poem “Thanatopsis,” where the natural world serves as a reminder of all the life that existed before us. While “time to share” has the easy explanation of the phrase meaning ‘life on Earth,” the phrase “a well-used stare” isn’t so simple. One way of reading that phrase entails that Steven (or the speaker or both) holds experienced eyes that have seen sights akin to (yet different from) those seen by Steven’s predecessors.

A last kicker from Steven exhibits itself in the song’s last verse:

This smile isn't pure Certain or sure. Cold precision was never there.

The way we uncoil. Return to the soil. Flaws are everything and chaos reigns.

Two lines into the last verse, “This smile isn’t pure/Certain or sure” carries two details. First, the “smile” here contrasts with the one from the first verse since it’s one based on instinct, not world-weariness. This gets followed by quantifying the smile as “pure/Certain or sure.” Those three adjectives convey ideas of moral justness and objectivity that are impossible to achieve even in ideal situations, let alone an emotionally-charged time such as the funeral of your father’s funeral.

That unconscious smile comes back in the third line: “Cold precision was never there.” Here, an indirect comparison is made between Steven’s unconscious smile and the notion of God’s divine plan. For this to cohere, one should consider that if God exists, there’s so much in the natural world which stems from the result of an ‘accident’ (happy or not). Especially regarding anything that appears random or nonsensical in biology.

Steven’s next two lines—“The way we uncoil/Return to the soil”—reiterate familiar territory for this song. On one level, “uncoil” serves as a synonym for death and the matter-of-fact phraseology of “The way we uncoil” reflects the fact that everyone dies at some point. This gets followed up with “Return to the soil” restating the naturalistic view of life as death involving becoming part of nature.

The song’s final original line—“Flaws are everything and chaos reigns”—serves as a great line which expands upon the notions of nature and the random found prior in the song. First at bat comes “Flaws are everything,” insofar as “Flaws” define and shape human relations, human differences, and human individuality. This wording of “Flaw” carries an added sting: if there is a God, any human difference apart from differences in biological sex would indicate a flaw in His design. That dark side seeps over into nature and the random in the phrase “chaos reigns.” Such a phrase implies that the random applies to who dies of what cause—even if preventable causes such as war, famine, disease, and violence were rendered a non-issue, there are still things that boil down to freak accidents or even natural causes that can end a person’s life. All of which are unknown as to what will kill you until (usually) it happens.

• “No Part of Me” (5:45)

Representing a different sound from the album up to this point, “No Part of Me” exhibits a far more modern sound than prior tracks. That’s partly due to the instrumentation provided by the guest musicians and partly the result of some mild techno/industrial influence. While the first half’s relatively subdued, the second half contains an instrumental section dominated by guitar and saxophone—a set of solos which feel haphazard yet perfectly in-place.

On a lyrical level, “No Part of Me” remains sparse: two verses of five lines each, but no choruses. It’s not the song with the fewest lines of lyrics on Grace for Drowning—“Remainder the Black Dog,” “Track One,” and “Like Dust I Have Cleared from My Eye” all have fewer lines than “No Part of Me.” As far as subject matter, this one can chalk up to a failed relationship. But there’s more to it than that.

“No Part of Me” also contains a total of six guest appearances. First, there’s the presence of Theo Travis on saxophone (with a rather awesome sax solo in the back-half of the song). Second, Nick Beggs returns, but on bass guitar this time. Third, Pat Mastelotto (King Crimson) occupies both acoustic and electric drums. Fourth, German musician Markus Reuter is credited with ‘U8 touch guitar’ in the liner notes. Fifth, ex-King Crimson member Trey Gunn plays both Warr guitar and bass guitar. Lastly, the London Session Orchestra was summoned in to play some rather brisk string parts.

The first half of these lyrics illustrate the scenario of the speaker in vivid detail:

I feel worn out. There's no point drinking When life slows right down And holds you up above the water line. So sleep will never come.

This initial line of “I feel so worn out” carries familiar territory for Steven at this point. Most notably with “feel” registering the notion of hunches not being a 1:1 match with reality. But right from the first line, “worn out” also makes the situation clear—this relationship proves taxing on the speaker’s physical and/or mental health.

That taxing quality only escalates in the next three line: “There’s no point drinking/When life slows right down/And holds you up above the water line.” Starting things off, the phrase “no point drinking” has differing implications on the speaker’s physical and mental state. In regards to his physical state, “no point drinking” suggests a state of physical wellness due to a lack of alcoholism. But the speaker’s mental health takes a downward spike since the phrase also suggests that the speaker’s in such profound misery that even drunken revelry can’t cheer him up—not even momentarily. This extends to the fact that the next phrase—“life slows right down”—conveys that the speaker wishes to get the misery over with, but the phrase also comes with a tinge of dread since he can’t get himself to break the relationship immediately. Therefore, “holds you up” entails that the speaker’s placed in a position that feels like he can’t break free while “above the water line” connotes that that position’s left him at the end of his rope.

All that makes one think that something different about the last line of the verse: “So sleep will never come.” That different though comes in that the “sleep” isn’t literal. Instead, it serves as a metaphor since it reflects the notion that the anxiety/misery/stress brought on by the speaker’s current situation render it so that sleep doesn’t relax him like it should.

Steven’s second half of lyrics escalate the song to a dramatic tension which the instrumental second-half will raise to a fever-pitch:

One last time then Before I lose you. You don't have to pretend. I know that love for you was just security. There's no part of me in you.

Just the way this verse starts with two lines—“One last time then/Before I lose you”—that convey an ending proves haunting. For example, the wording of “One last time” entails that the speaker feels certain that the relationship is done. However, that wording also emphasizes his hesitation and illustrates that the speaker’s emotionally torturing himself by putting off the inevitable. That ambiguity leads to another in the word “lose.” The source of that word’s ambiguity derives from the fact that the song itself doesn’t state how the speaker will “lose” this other person. Therefore, while the speaker breaking things off cleanly seems like the obvious interpretation, there are multiple other possibilities. Those range from the speaker walking out on the other person, the other person walking out on the speaker, the other person dying, or the speaker murdering the other person.

However, all of those other ideas don’t appear to cohere with the next two lines: “You don’t have to pretend/I know that love for you was just security.” The first line of that—“You don’t have to pretend”—appears to function as the moment where the speaker spills his guts to the other person. Namely that things aren’t working out and that things are better off if the two split. Where things get interesting comes from the line that follows: “I know that love for you was just security.” This detail of love being undertaken for emotional dependence, validation, and/or status wasn’t a motif that appeared much in Steven’s lyrics prior to this. However, that same notion re-emerges in both “The Pin Drop” and “The Watchmaker” (both from The Raven That Refused to Sing (and Other Stories)), but in far darker contexts. In fact, this is the only one of Steven’s songs with that motif where death isn’t involved. So (in a way), that makes “No Part of Me” Steven’s least screwed-up break-up song insofar as it advocates a clean, non-violent break-up if that situation is necessary.

And finally, there’s the last line of the song: “There’s no part of me in you.” In essence, it serves as the crux of the entire song. All while conveying the breakdown of any attachment between the personality of the speaker and his lover. At this exact moment, the break-up turns out for the best since compatibility between the two is non-existent.

• “Postcard” (4:29)

In an album that doesn’t have much in the way of radio-friendly or accessible material, “Postcard” provides a massive exception to the rule. It might possibly serve as Steven’s greatest stab at pop in a mainline project since “Lazarus” from Deadwing. There’s a rich piano part that starts the song right out of the gate before Steven’s vocals croon over it in a tone that’s intimate, warm, and inviting—even more so once woodwinds such as flute begin appearing. Guitar, bass, drums, and percussion appear sparsely in this song—in fact, they’re non-existent apart from the bridge (positioned between the second and third verses) and the orchestral-backed outro that which provides a climax that speaks louder than any of Steven’s words ever could.

Lyrically, “Postcard” is—along with “Deform to Form a Star”—the track whose mood is most influenced by tragedy in Steven Wilson’s life in the year-and-a-half before. In that period of time, Steven’s father died of cancer. This context proves vital since otherwise, the song seems to describe a suicidal person. With this context, “Postcard” becomes haunting as it involves Steven picturing his father—a person he likely admired growing up—lose his vigor for life and therefore losing what he admired in his father as a child.

Musical-guest-wise, there are only two people besides Steven involved. Those are Nic France on drums and the London Session Orchestra on strings.

Steven’s opening set of lyrics illustrate a lingering sense of despair:

I think it's time that I got off the kitchen floor. But is there really any point at all? Waking up this morning felt the same. Better sleep while life is so mundane.

Right from the opening line of “I think it’s time that I got off the kitchen floor,” one gets an idea of the speaker’s (probably Steven’s dad) state-of-mind. In fact, the second word of “think” indicates that he’s uncertain of things and that uncertainty has left him jaded, stripped him of all motivation in life, and rendered him dead inside as he slips away. As to what he’s slipping away from, “off the kitchen floor” gives us one symptom of it since how he got there suggests some sort of fainting spell and/or other disease-related complication.

All this leads to the last three lines of this verse: “But is there really any point at all?/Waking up this morning felt the same/Better sleep while life is so mundane.” To break this down, “But is there any point at all” reiterates two things we already know about the speaker: he’s in the throes of death and he harbors a sense of meaninglessness. That meaninglessness extends to “Waking up this morning felt the same,” where the state of stasis while in the grips of death has become as commonplace as the act of waking up. But it’s the last line—“Better sleep while life is so mundane”—which reveals something new about the character. Namely that this sense of meaninglessness is partly a ‘fuck-it’ attitude that’s indebted to the fact that his physical condition’s so frail that he’s unable to do anything of significance. Therefore, a lack of ability breeds meaninglessness.

Further despair reveals itself in Steven’s second verse:

It could have been yesterday that I locked the door. I blocked the windows up so I can't be sure. Now I haven't even got the will to eat. I'm lame and self-obsessed, that I will concede.

The “mundane” quality from the last verse re-occurs in the lines “It could have been yesterday that I locked the door/I blocked the windows up so I can’t be sure.” Here, “could” indicates that the ‘mundane’ quality has made the days blend together. However, this has a small hole in “yesterday” unless if—even though the days still blend together—what matters more comes from the fact that it seems like yesterday that the speaker did this action. As for that action itself, “locked the door” and “blocked the windows up” are both actions that carry dire connotations about the speaker. Namely, the speaker believes his situation so futile that he’s denying any avenue of help.

That sense of futility extends to the next line: “Now I haven’t even got the will to eat.” In this line, that futility comes from the fact that the speaker’s already at death’s door even if he were to perform all the tasks necessary to sustain human life. Therefore, what otherwise reads as a statement of self-hatred and self-harm comes across as the speaker lacking concern with the processes that keep him alive. After all, they won’t stop the cancer from killing him.

Another development occurs in the line “I’m lame and self-obsessed, that I will concede.” At this junction, “lame” has a slightly-anachronistic meaning in how Steven uses it in the song. Despite “lame” entering the parlance as meaning ‘uncool,’ Steven uses the word “lame” in the sense that one would describe a wounded horse: crippled due to a grievous injury that affects ability to walk. That “lame” quality symbolizes the devastating effect that cancer’s had on the speaker’s body. Yet these same concerns don’t succeed at hiding a character flaw in the form of “self-obsessed.” See, the speaker’s aware of how he should be, but his “lame” state ensures that—due to the random chance of getting cancer—his ideal remains permanently out-of-reach. However, the concluding phrase of “that I will concede”—an admission of his own character flaws—somewhat tempers any arrogant quality one can derive from “self-obsessed.” But that same phrase also indicates that the speaker—while aware of his own flaws—remains unable to do anything to change it.

An abbreviated third verse comes from Steven and illustrates the futility of the scenario:

I'd like to light a cigarette but I cannot. The lighter's dead and the gas has been cut off.

These two lines of “I’d like to light a cigarette but I cannot/The lighter’s dead and the gas has been cut off” harbor extensive use of symbolism and metaphor that bear analysis. One such example coming from “light a cigarette,” a metaphor for using one’s own x-factor as an outlet for creative expression. Here, Steven relates to his father’s situation by imagining how he’d behave any differently if he were in a similarly-debilitating scenario. That debilitation—exhibited by “I cannot”—comes as an expression of inability, an illustration of all that cancer’s robbed the speaker of, and (by imagining what his father went through) Steven’s own personal horror that he wouldn’t be able to express himself musically—the thing he’s dedicated his life to—if he had such a debilitating illness. Considering all that, the one thing Steven probably couldn’t understand comes from how the speaker accepts his fate. Indeed, the phrase “lighter’s dead” entails that the lighter existed as a mechanism for the speaker’s zeal and that with it gone, the speaker’s lack of energy (which “the gas has been cut off” uses as an analogue for one’s physical state) coincides with removing one’s will to live.

But Steven saves the song’s most-devastating verse for last:

I'm the one you always seem to read about. The fire inside my eyes has long gone out. There's nothing left for me to say or do 'Cause all that matters disappeared when I lost you.

The first line of this verse—“I’m the one you always seem to read about”—constitutes a devastating sentence on its own. Not because “you” addresses either someone of ambiguous identity or constitutes a direct fourth-wall break. Instead, the sad part of this line comes from “always seem to read about.” When one considers that cancer sometimes boils down to random chance, this song isn’t just a song about Steven’s father dying of cancer anymore. Instead, the factor of random chance renders it so it could’ve been any number of ways that Steven’s dad/the speaker lost the will to live in such a way that he does in this song. It’s no secret that the world beats down so many people every day, but all of them are ones “you always seem to read about” regardless of what misfortune befell them.

Granted, the implications of the next two lines—“The fire inside my eyes has long gone out/There’s nothing left for me to say or do”—can’t come from a sudden death, but from a process that’s either a slow-death or an event that traumatizes someone. As for what these lines say, “The fire inside my eyes has long gone out” functions as an imagistic portrayal of what the cancer’s done to Steven’s dad—drained him of a reason to live. The heartbreaking part of that comes from the irony that the speaker/Steven’s dad was already dead long before his own body shut down. That ‘dead inside’ quality fuels “There’s nothing left for me to say or do,” a line which acts as the clearest, most-explicit statement of self-loathing and pointlessness in the entire song.

However, the last line—a simple and succinct sentence of “’Cause all that matters disappeared when I lost you”—carries the heaviest sting in the whole song. That’s largely because this line’s a final restatement of everything which came before. First, there’s “all that matters disappeared” and how the use of ‘disappear’ appears as if the speaker had no control over his situation. Then there’s “when I lost you” illustrating the cancer robbing the speaker’s zeal for life.

Immediately after Steven wraps up that last lyric, a drum fill carries the song to an outro section that’s nothing short of breathtaking. On the surface, it’s the same as the instrumental section that followed the second verse. But the string section, synth choir, live drums, and layers of guitar elevate this part to new heights. One way to read this euphoric outro involves marking it as the moment of death.

• “Raider Prelude” (2:23) [instrumental]

“Raider Prelude” appropriately sets up the sinister musical motif that fuels the later “Raider II.” But besides functioning as an atmospheric transition between “Postcard” and “Remainder the Black Dog,” there’s not much notable about it as a song. In fact, this has a similar role to “Grace for Drowning” and “Belle de Jour”—where they operate perfectly in the flow of the album, but are so transitional that I never listen to them outside of a full-album listen.

In the realm of musical guests, “Raider Prelude” features no guest appearances. However, Steven plays a gong on this track, so there’s unusual instrumentation in this piece.

• “Remainder the Black Dog” (9:27)

As the final track on the first disc, “Remainder the Black Dog” contains the largest debt to King Crimson’s improvisational flights-of-fancy out of any song on the album except for “Raider II.” Out of the nine-and-a-half minute track-length, only the first two-and-a-half minutes have lyrics—in a section led by a piano pattern from Steven played in a 15/8 time signature. The rest of the song goes through a myriad of time signatures, tempos, volumes, instruments, tones, and rhythms with Steven operating as a bandleader.

For the general sense of the sparse lyrics, the idea behind “Remainder the Black Dog” concerns an unmotivated and paranoid person. But there’s much more to it than that. In fact, it’s the layers of detail which make the lyrics an unsettling match for Steven’s spooky piano melody. One detail to consider is that possibility that these lyrics are told in third-person omniscient—something ascertainable by the usage of “you” in a handful of lines and the shift from past-tense verbs to present-tense verbs between stanzas.

There’s definitely a smattering of guests in “Remainder the Black Dog”—four of them. First of all, Theo Travis has his fingerprints all over this song—playing saxophone, flute, and clarinet. Secondly, Nick Beggs operates both the Chapman stick and the bass guitar. Thirdly, Nic France deftly handles the drums. Lastly, Steve Hackett (ex-Genesis) plays a guitar part that’s too brief to be worth going over (I couldn’t tell it was him…and that’s coming from a massive Genesis fan).

The first half of the song’s lyrics—delivered in a voice barely above a whisper—outline the situation in a complex word-choice:

Scintilla falling behind. Did you arrive at the place that you came from? A cultivator of dread. The paranoia took root in your cold heart.

Steven starts the lyrics to this song with the line “Scintilla falling behind,” which contains a word (“Scintilla”) that warrants a search in the dictionary. Doing so results in “Scintilla” functioning as a synonym for ‘trace’ or ‘spark.’ With this in mind, it’s clear that the speaker’s talking about a person whose self has been gradually stripped away from him/her/them while living life in the manner demonstrated by later lines.

One such manner of life is subjected to interrogation in the line “Did you arrive at the place that you came from?” Given Steven’s common usage of an ambiguous place to indicate any sort of afterlife, this question comes across as the speaker mocking the subject by insinuating that they’re of a religious/spiritual persuasion. For instance, to call “the place that you came from” an afterlife isn’t much different from a similar line from Porcupine Tree’s “Arriving Somewhere But Not Here.”[1] However, this line also implies that there’s something about the subject that’s left him/her/them in a rut which only facing his/her/their fears will alleviate.

Said rut has a bit of a snag with the line “A cultivator of dread.” Simply the words “cultivator of dread” imply that the subject (on some level) takes a perverse joy in his/her/their own fears—a thematic motif dating back at least to the works of Edgar Allan Poe. By extension, that phrase also suggests that the subject takes a perverse joy in the conditions that drive him/her/them towards the fear-based rut. As a result, the subject’s far more content with remaining in his/her/their rut than facing his/her/their fears. Effectively a guarantee that the subject won’t escape the rut anytime soon.

That guarantee becomes important in understanding the line “The paranoia took root in your cold heart.” Because now, “paranoia” further details the qualities of that guarantee. After all, “paranoia” depends on self-obsession and solipsism, traits that create a thematic linkage to the “self-obsessed” character from “Postcard.” However, the variant of self-obsession presented here proves darker since it leaves this subject in a rut that not even death can release him/her/them from. Now, in saying that the paranoia “took root,” the phrase suggests that paranoia’s now part of the subject’s own nature, much like a tree taking root. As a result, every odd action has a basis in the subject’s irrational (or rational, but over-exaggerated) fear. Finally, one can make a note that “your cold heart” marks the net result of the paranoia on the subject’s personality. Ironically, the concern for safety has made him/her/them a darker person.

Ideas are abound within Steven’s second-half of the lyrics:

Neurotic up with the dawn. Prescription pills to ignore, the map is useless. If you would dare to dissolve, You'd get the thing that you craved for so long now.

As immediately as the first line (“Neurotic up with the dawn”), the paranoia from the last verse becomes imbued with consequences. Those two consequences being the inability to make concrete decisions stick (“Neurotic”) and an ersatz sleep schedule (“up with the dawn”). One should notice that these are two consequences containing substantial effects on a person’s physical and mental well-being—no doubt something exacerbated by the paranoia. However, the qualities of the paranoia and these two consequences create a double-bind (or a ‘catch-22,’ if you will) since trying to solve one makes the other push back with enough force that to induce a relapse. Therefore, it’s a mutually-assured downward spiral with only one solution: the speaker must find the motivation to face his/her/their fears. Unfortunately, we’ve already established that that’s not going to happen.

Further illustrating the woes of the subject comes in the form of “Prescription pills to ignore, the map is useless.” Here, “Prescription pills to ignore” implies that the subject suffers from a mental illness and/or physical condition (the nature of which is left ambiguous). Keeping this in mind, the “cultivator of dread” factors into the fact that he’s/she’s/they’re ignoring his/her/their “Prescription pills” since that shunning puts the speaker in danger. One can suggest that the pills are also the “map” in the phrase “the map is useless,” in which case, there’s common ground with a Porcupine Tree line “And the pills I’ve been taking aren’t helping.”[2] However, that phrase “the map is useless” also factors into independence and being misunderstood. Namely that a consequence of following the beat of one’s own drum is that previous schemas/structures don’t fit 1:1 with one’s own vision—a map can feel useless if it doesn’t gel with your own path. The downside to that is that there’s a danger if ‘following the beat of one’s own drum’ involves forgoing safety. One example of such appears in a story involving a contemporary of Steven’s: Canadian metal musician Devin Townsend.

In 2004, Devin’s band at the time (Strapping Young Lad) were recording their 2005 album Alien. Devin had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder six years prior (a condition whose side-effects were heightened by his drug use at the time). In the intervening six years, he’d gone clean except for his prescribed anti-psychotic medication. Where this factors into the dangers of ‘following the beat of one’s own drum’ comes from the fact that during the writing/recording process of Alien, Devin decided to forgo his anti-psychotic medication in order to explore the dark depths of where the music would take him. That decision wasn’t a wise one and Devin nearly died during the recording process. Fortunately, he’s in a much better and wiser state-of-mind these days.

Back on topic—the song’s final two lines (“If you would dare to dissolve,/You’d get the thing that you craved for so long now”) carry quite the sting. For example, the first line of “If you would dare to dissolve” has a word choice (“dissolve”) that can refer to either the pills or to the subjects own life. In the case of the latter, it’s an invitation to death. In this regard, the speaker’s voice comes through in the line “You’d get the thing that you craved for so long now.” That line alone characterizes the speaker as someone who’s goading the subject into suicide. Possibly because the speaker feels that death’s preferable to the rut that the speaker’s stuck in.

Following the ending of the lyrics, the song explodes into a long jam session that I expect will keep first-time listeners glued to their seats simply out of wondering what can come next. The off-kilter rhythms that dominate the song give a musical accompaniment to the perpetual decline of the subject. But the cruelty of what the speaker’s doing (goading someone to kill themselves) remains omnipresent in the menacing, unsettling feeling of the rhythms and melodies. No matter how many saxophone, flute, keyboard, organ, and guitar solos are spattered about the myriad of rhythms across several clusters of time-signatures, the song remains united in the lyrical topics of menace and decline. And that decline reaches a dark conclusion via the fact that the song ends (on the studio version) in a fade-out. In the context of the lyrical content, that detail can symbolize either the subject passing out from a (likely successful) suicide attempt by an overdose of pills or the speaker taking his final steps away from the subject. It’s an ambiguous ending that Steven puts here and he leaves enough clues for either conclusion (or both conclusions) to remain valid.

• Disc Two

• "Belle de Jour” (2:59) [instrumental]

Much like how the title track opened the first disc with a gorgeous piano-driven overture, “Belle de Jour” does the same for disc two. However, there are some differences between this and “Grace for Drowning” in terms of mood.

This one does have one guest appearance in the form of a string section from the London Session Orchestra (who also appears on “Index”). The song also features Steven playing autoharp at one point

• "Index” (4:49)

“Index” comes across as one of the creepiest-sounding songs Steven Wilson has ever written. And especially of his solo career. If “Sleep Together” marked a first flirtation with the industrial style, “The Incident” an integration of it into his core sound, and “Abandoner” testing what directions that sound can take, then “Index” marks Steven perfecting all of that. In fact, the tones he elicits out of the production—combined with the creepy subject matter—make for a song that manages to crawl under the skin of the listener and linger there. This one unsettles as much as some of Trent Reznor’s most disturbing moments in Nine Inch Nails’ 1994 album The Downward Spiral.

Regarding the creepy subject matter, it doesn’t jump out at you as immediately as the first line what this song’s truly about. While at first glance, one gets the impression that “Index” is about a hoarder, the unsettling sound (and some of the lines) suggest that the speaker isn’t above collecting things such as cadavers or living human beings. And that’s not merely me misinterpreting the song—Steven was once quoted as being inspired to write this after reading John Fowles’s novel “The Collector.” To quote relevant details from the Wikipedia article on the novel:

“A lonely young man, Frederick Clegg, who works as a clerk in a city hall and collects butterflies in his spare time….Clegg is obsessed with Miranda Grey…He admires her from a distance but is unable to make any contact with her because he is socially underdeveloped…He feels lonely, however, and wants to be with Miranda. Unable to make any normal contact, Clegg decides to add her to his "collection" of pretty, petrified objects, in the hope that if he keeps her captive long enough, she will grow to love him.”

As if that wasn’t creepy enough, there are several cases where the novel (or its movie adaptation) has been claimed as an inspiration for serial killers/kidnappers to commit their crime. Three particularly infamous cases—Leonard Lake/Charles Ng, Christopher Wilder, and Robert Berdella—between 1984 and 1988 had modeled their modus operandi on the case detailed in the novel. Which fits right into Steven’s recurrent serial killer fascination (present on the songs “This Is No Rehearsal,” “Last Chance To Evacuate Planet Earth Before It Is Recycled,” all of In Absentia, several songs on The Incident, “Raider II,” and (debatably) a couple tracks on The Raven That Refused to Sing (and Other Stories)). I haven’t read the novel myself, so all I have to go off of are the relevant details from the Wikipedia article (which I quoted) and the musical/lyrical elements of the song itself—which is enough to form an interpretation.

On the subject of guest appearances, “Index” utilizes a string section from the London Session orchestra and Pat Mastelotto (King Crimson) playing acoustic and electronic drums. Like “Belle de Jour,” Steven can also be found playing an autoharp at one point of the song.

Steven’s unnerving lyrics begin as such:

I'm a collector, I collect anything I find. I never throw anything away that's mine. And I'd collect you too if I was given half a chance And trap you under the glass and add my autograph.

One line into the song (“I’m a collector, I collect anything I find”) and there’s already some pretty damning evidence leveled against the speaker. Despite the fact that his self-description of “collector” registers as an attempt for the speaker to rationalize his own actions by claiming that he’s no different than a hoarder. Where cracks in his rationalization appear (in a fashion akin to a Robert Browning dramatic monologue) is in the phrase “anything I find.” In that phrase alone, there’s two suggestions. The first being an obsessive nature in the speaker. The second suggestion comes from the fact that the speaker dehumanizes anything he finds—in a way not dissimilar to the connotations of the line “Don’t think you’ll never know my name” from another song.[3]

While the next line (“I never throw away anything that’s mine”) starts out in similar territory, it ends with a new character trait in the speaker. The familiar territory—indicated by “never throw away”—amounts to another occasion where the speaker posits that he’s no different from a hoarder. However, there’s a hole in the next phrase: “mine.” That single word denotes both ownership and a possessive nature to the speaker which further characterizes the speaker’s obsessive nature.

New territory in the lyrics come about in the next two lines: “And I’d collect you too if I was given half a chance/And trap you under the glass and add my autograph.” Here, there’s indirect connections to the novel that’s the source material. For instance, in the phrase “I’d collect you,” the “I’d” is the speaker—possibly Frederick Clegg—while the “you” definitely is Miranda Grey. But that’s hardly the only phrase in the song justifying why I gave the context of the novel. Right now, there’s “if,” a single word that conveys Frederick’s anxieties and his belief that he can’t get to know Miranda through any way that isn’t fucked-up. A detour from this comes from the phrase “given half a chance,” where the speaker believes that it’s random chance that he can trap a person at all—a notion that’s contradictory to the cold-and-calculated nature of his operations since it entails that the speaker thinks things are pre-determined and stacked against him by default. As a result, “trap you under the glass” suggests that the speaker thinks that the only way he can interact with others involves putting them so beneath him that they can’t fight back or deny him. Because the speaker also believes that if anyone else were given their own volition, they’d deny him. Such an idea implies that the speaker’s overly self-conscious of his flaws, yet feels powerless to fix them in any meaningful capacity. Therefore, his solution—the coldly-personal touch of “add my autograph”—involves an detail that comes across as both defilement and reverence since he can’t interact with anyone in a truly respectful way.

Following what amounts to a threat, the listener gets treated to a view at the speaker’s modus operandi:

I catalog, I preserve, and I index And file you into my collectable Rolodex. I keep the rubbish what other people give away And keep all of the pieces in a metal tray.

Two lines of this second verse (“I catalog, I preserve, and I index/And file you into my collectable Rolodex”) reveals just as much about the speaker’s operations as it does about his flaws. Granted, it does start with “I catalog, I preserve,” a phrase that registers as another attempt for the speaker to make himself appear better—this time, assuming the rule of a curator. However, that’s followed by “index.” That one word insinuates that a name and an image are all that anyone or anything will ever amount to—a hypocritical notion since the speaker’s modus operandi involves amassing these objects. But things grow more disturbing with “file you” being addressed to a human subject. Here, it’s proven that the speaker considers human subjects no different from an inanimate object—which means that emotions are discarded because they’re unable to be broken down to cold-and-calculated precision. Yet using that cold-and-calculated precision, it makes sense that the speaker finds objects easier to deal with than people. This leads to the irony behind “my collectable Rolodex,” that—despite the shut-in standing of the speaker—this has become business-like in organization.

Just where the next two lines (“I keep the rubbish, what other people give away,/And keep all of the pieces in a metal tray”) takes the song involves a new development on familiar territory. For instance, “rubbish” undercuts the idea behind “I catalog, I preserve” now that the speaker acknowledges the lack of value in some of his possessions. Or the speaker cannot quantify value since it (like emotions) operates upon subjective criteria. From there, value becomes the basis of a judgment in “other people,” where the speaker decries other people as short-sighted despite the fact that these other people would describe him as either a hoarder, a lunatic, or both. This ends up extending to “pieces” since even broken things have value to the speaker—when value is eliminated, everything is equal and nothing can be valueless. Such an emotionless approach becomes symbolized via “in a metal tray,” a cold-and-calculated touch that’s in-line with a science like forensics.

That cold, systematic quality to the character—reflected in the sound—has no better display than in the chorus:

Hoard - Collect - File – Index. Catalog - Preserve - Amass – Index.

Although the first line of “Hoard – Collect – File – Index” contains some familiar words, there are two new elements worth dissecting. In the first new word of “Hoard,” there’s the suggestion of a compulsion and an unhealthy addiction which entails that the speaker needs help yet—since he’s collecting people—is beyond help, but he was so secluded that no one would help him before he reached that point. The truly fucked-up thing about “Collect” (the second new word) is that—in terms of describing his practices as gathering a collection—the speaker’s right from a cold-and-calculated view. However, for that to be correct, that requires stripping away anything that carries uncertainties (including emotions, values, morals) and operating on the basest, self-serving level—no different from a sociopath.

Just like the first line, “Catalog – Preserve – Amass – Index” mixes words we’ve seen before with one that’s new. That only new element (“Amass”) comes in the form of a word that’s indicative of the sociopathy which enables the speaker’s actions. In that sense, it’s almost as if the speaker’s playing a game and sees no value in anyone except himself.

By the time verse three rolls around, the listener gets another view of the speaker:

I'm a collector and I've always been misunderstood. I like the things that people seem to always overlook. I gather up and catalog it in a book I wrote. There's so much now that I forget if I don't make a note.

While the first two lines (“I’m a collector and I’ve always been misunderstood/I like the things that people seem to always overlook”) has some familiar themes, there’s also new tinges. On the topic of familiarity, “collector” makes himself look better than he is and “misunderstood” involves putting down other people for being short-sighted. As for new twists, focus on what he “likes” and consider that it’s random chance that he happens to like what he likes. That factor of random chance means that the speaker’s implying that he’s been painted as a martyr.

Contrast that with the third line: “I gather up and catalog it in a book I wrote.” This “book” is definitely referring to the “collectible Rolodex.” As for the full phrase “in a book I wrote,” that suggest that the Rolodex itself is of such magnitude that it matches that of an actual book.

But the most interesting point of development in this verse comes from the last line: “There’s so much now that I forget if I don’t make a note.” Just focus upon the phrase “I forget if I don’t make a note.” There’s definitely the detail of the speaker’s cold-and-calculated, business-like practices coming across as a response to human limitations. Especially those related to human memory. By his attempt to defy these limitation, the speaker forsakes his own humanity. However, this creates a paradox: by responding to the limitations of human memory at all, the speaker tacitly acknowledges that there’s a semblance of humanity that can’t be eliminated—no matter how deeply the speaker buries it within him.

The last lyrics in the song end on a kind of a downer note before the chorus re-emerges:

If I collected you and put you in a little cage, I could take you out and study you every day. It isn't easy being me, it's kind of lonely work. My obligation to collecting is my only thirst.

One half of this last verse (“If I collected you and put you in a little cage,/I could take you out and study you every day”) solidifies the speaker’s character flaws. First, “If” comes across as outlining a fantasy of the speaker, a detail which illustrates what he wants as an ideal—unconsciously revealing his truest self. In this regard, “in a little cage” reinforces the fact that fear drives the speaker. Specifically, the fear that he’s doomed to be abandoned by anyone unless that person’s restrained. But the most lamentable part of these lines comes from “study you every day.” Here, the speaker fundamentally misses the point of humanity: an earlier phrase of “flaws are everything” (from “Deform to Form a Star”) entails that a complete study of humanity is impossible because of how many variables exist between person to person.

All that makes “It isn’t easy being me, it’s kind of lonely work” become flat-out pitiful. Here, the speaker’s attempts to make himself look better has the purpose of evoking pity. And the source of that pity—ascertainable by “kind of lonely work”—centers upon total isolation.

Then, the final line of “My obligation to collecting is my only thirst” serves as a capper which reinforces one old thing and introduces a new development. Regarding the old, “obligation” remains consistent with the connotations of “Hoard,” entailing that this obsession’s in-line with an addiction. The new detail comes in the form of “my only thirst,” since because that’s the only thing that motivates him in life, any presumed attraction to Miranda is a lie to himself.

• “Track One” (4:16)

From a musical perspective, “Track One” consists of two distinct halves. The first involves a serene acoustic pattern with Steven crooning above it. However, the second half of the song expands upon similar sonic territory to the end of “Abandoner.” Only even more overwhelming thanks to the increased amount of instrumentation which give the section far more gravitas. Especially the presence of live drums and what sounds like strings.

On a lyrical level, “Track One” has the sparsest lyrics of any song on Grace for Drowning and of any song of Steven’s solo career up to this point. In total, “Track One” contains six lines. As for the subject matter of these lyrics, one gets a sense of Lewis Carol-esque madness in some of the word-play while the song touches upon a dysfunctional relationship through a man’s perspective. In fact, these lines portray it as vaguely apocalyptic.

For the presence of guest musicians, “Track One” features one name: Nic France on drums. Then again, that’s man plays drums on the majority of Grace for Drowning, so is he really a guest?

The first (and longer) set of lyrics in “Track One” are a fairly cryptic set of words from Steven:

Fall of winter, fall of all sundowns. The treachery of the coldness of your smile. Violator, among the trees they hide. Perambulator, fade into the night.

Directly from the first line (“Fall of winter, fall of all sundowns”), the apocalyptic imagery of doom-and-gloom rears their ugly head. In a sense, that sort of imagery functions as a metaphor for the man’s emotional state in this scenario. To such an extent that the phrase “Fall of winter” evokes the image of a nuclear fallout, an anxiety that Steven’s familiar with since he would’ve been in his late-teens/early-twenties during the final decade of the Cold War.

The next line (“The treachery of the coldness of your smile”) latches onto the detail of the man’s emotional state and develops it further. Most notably in “treachery,” a word-choice conveying that the speaker believes that he was wronged—but one can choose to think he’s full of shit and simply trying to make himself look better by tearing his ex-lover down. All that states that the man isn’t free of culpability, a detail that the phrase “coldness of your smile” also supports. While the “your” suggests that the ex-lover grew emotionally distant at a gradual pace, the line remains ambiguous whether it was a mutual drifting-apart or whether the “coldness” stemmed from the speaker’s action. If the latter, then the speaker’s not going to say what the actions in question were.

However, a hint as to what caused the emotional distance comes from the third line: “Violator, among the trees they hide.” The thing is that “Violator” states it all—the speaker’s ex-lover was the victim of a rape. That rape—as ascertainable from “among the trees they hide”—resulted from a surprise attack. While a tiny detail (the use of “they” instead of “you” or “I”) rules out the speaker being the rapist, a situation like this would strain a relationship even under the best of circumstances.

That knowledge informs how one reads the fourth line (“Perambulator, fade into the night”), where we find out via “Perambulator” (a word with connotations of an infant’s crib) that the rape left the ex-lover pregnant. However, there’s a lot of ambiguity regarding the phrase “fade into the night.” That phrase has three potential meanings: that the ex-lover had a miscarriage, had an abortion, or left the speaker for someone else while pregnant. What the song doesn’t confirm or deny is whether or not the speaker wanted to be a father (but couldn’t do to infertility)—something that matters since those are factors which likely fueled the drifting-apart.

After that quartet, Steven’s only remaining lyrics are the following couplet:

Buzz killers stride, fall into the tide headlong. Twin sister stars, bouncing off cars are headstrong.

Just the way this couplet starts (“Buzz killers stride, fall into the tide headlong”) factors into the ambiguity regarding “fade into the night” from the last line. First, “Buzz killers” refers to flower-pollination as an analogue to sex—because bees temporarily stay still in the act of pollination, their buzz is ‘killed.’ This transitions into “stride,” which makes use of an insidious comparison—claiming pregnancy (even resulting from rape) is as natural as bees pollinating flowers and that abortion is unnatural. The moment where the ambiguity of “fade into the night” comes about via “fall into the tide headlong.” This moment marks where the speaker recalls the wording that he used which warranted the “treachery” from the ex-lover. That “treachery” entails that the ex-lover left him after having an abortion since he wanted to keep the rape-baby because he didn’t know if he’d have another opportunity to become a father.

The speaker’s jackassery backfires upon the speaker in the final line of the song: “Twin sister stars, bouncing off cars are headstrong.” To start off, “Twin sister stars” implies that the ex-lover found love again, but with another woman. Not only that, but “stars” suggests that this lesbian relationship is one where both parties lift each other up and exude confidence (also suggested by “headstrong”)—a relationship that’s as healthy as her previous relationship was toxic. One may also get the sense that the speaker intends this as an insult. If that’s the case, it backfires for two reasons. First, the wording of this line reads as an unconscious acknowledgement that she’s happier without him. Second, to turn this lesbian love into an insult reflects two things about the speaker: jealousy and homophobia.

Given the following quote, I doubt that the words of the speaker reflect Steven’s own feelings:

Unfortunately, that’s one of the cancers at the very heart of the human species, that if you don’t agree with me, I’m going to destroy you. That is religious fundamentalism in a nutshell, that’s terrorism in a nutshell. It’s the same with racism, it’s the same with any prejudice, whether it’s homophobia, sexism or whatever it is, that is a cancer and I think the human race really should have evolved by now, but we haven’t.[4]

Such words reflect the idea that the majority of Steven’s lyrics are from the perspective of characters created for the purpose of trying to understand the dark heart of intolerance.

• “Raider II” (23:21)

This long song returns to one of Steven Wilson’s Porcupine Tree-era lyrical preoccupations: serial killers. But in this case, this isn’t a fictional killer who is loosely based on a real one. No, ‘Raider’ is a homonym for Rader—as in Dennis Rader, the BTK killer. For a song that only has fourteen lines spread across four sections separated by long stretches of instrumentals, “Raider II” gets pretty detailed on the subject matter. So much so that it’s clear that Steven studied up on details such as the habits that Rader undertook to cover his tracks as well as what finally got the Wichita, Kansas-based killer arrested.

Musically, this song marks Steven going neck-deep into territory reserved for two other places: King Crimson’s Lizard album and jazz-fusion. That much is evident in the way that the opening minutes utilize silence as a tool for creating tension just as much as the wire-tight improvisation of his band sets listeners on edge. Throughout twenty-three minutes, there are numerous shifts in volume, tempo, instrumentation, time-signature, and mood that Steven serves as a bandleader throughout. And Steven serves that role so adroitly as to warrant comparisons to Robert Fripp and Frank Zappa—even in a slightly-truncated version (down to between 14 and 17 minutes) that gets performed live every now and again.

One might ask if this is called “Raider II,” then what became of “Raider I” exactly. Apparently, the improvisational nature of “Raider II” meant that there were up to six recorded takes of a song called “Raider” in the studio. While some of “Raider I” made up “Raider Prelude” and some demos exist of portions of “Raider IV,” “Raider II” remains the only complete take that Steven deemed fit for public consumption. Therefore, the Roman numeral in the title doesn’t indicate that the song is part of a series, but instead suggests ‘This is “Raider,” take two.’ It just turned out that the second take was what Steven considered the best take.

Now, a song this technical is exactly the type of song one would expect Steven to recruit a ton of musical guests for. And you’d be right because there’s a total of six guest musicians. First of all, Jordan Rudess makes a return appearance on piano. Second up to bat is Wilson regular Theo Travis to blow on the saxophone, the clarinet, and the flute. Third place is Nick Beggs, who’s found playing both Chapman stick and bass guitar. Fourth comes the ever-dutiful Nic France bashing on drums. The last two people up to par are the duo of Mike Outram and Sand Snowman on guitar. Additionally, Steven himself can be heard handling an instrument known as a harmonium.

During the quiet intro where only piano and woodwinds play, Steven delivers these lines in a voice barely above a whisper—a detail illustrating a criminal paranoid that the slightest mistake can ensure his capture:

A fist will make you understand intention. To raise alarm is underhand, so I cut off the phone. I bind you up with tape and catch some TV. It's getting late, the shadows in the street are watching us.

This first line of “A fist will make you understand intention”—combined with the menacing whispered delivery—comes across as a perfect first line that illustrates the unhinged brutality of the BTK killer. It’s only appropriate that threats of force on a victim ends up being reflected in the first words. Which ends up registering as chilling when one considers that all but two of the BTK killer’s ten victims were women—especially since it’s documented that he stalked many of his victims beforehand.

But the meat-and-potatoes of characterization in this verse comes from the last three lines: “To raise alarm is underhand, so I cut off the phone/I bind you up with tape and catch some TV/It’s getting late, the shadows in the street are watching us.” First up to bat comes “to raise alarm is underhand,” a statement of hypocrisy since the person calling it ‘underhand’ is a serial killer. Then, a real-life fact presents itself through “cut off the phone,” an action which the BTK killer always did in order to avoid capture. Another real-life fact involves the word “bind” since BTK was an acronym standing for ‘Bind, Torture, Kill,” which functioned as the BTK killer’s modus operandi. As for “tape,” not only is that the material used for the binding, but depending on the type of tape used, ripping it off can rip the skin of along with it. Combine that with “catch some TV” and one gets an effective display of the BTK killer’s callousness, self-centeredness, and sexism. Finally, “the shadows in the street” presents itself as an example of the BTK killer’s paranoia regarding the possibility of the police on his tail.

Once the song picks up steam and jams for a bit in a 17/8 time signature, the song returns to 4/4 for an industrial-tinged second verse:

Check for fibres in the gaps between the teeth, the floorboards. Check the fingerprints, go through the trash. Maybe I just wanted some attention. Compulsion seeks its own way in rejection of the light. Every story needs to have an ending. We might as well give up all this pretending and clear the air.

One ambiguous detail comes about in the lines “Check for fibres in the gaps between the teeth, the floorboards/Check the fingerprints, go through the trash.” It’s primarily concerned with the phrase “fibres in the gaps between the teeth” and whether “teeth refers to human teeth or the teeth of a zipper. Considering the BTK killer’s brutality, the idea of “teeth” registering as human teeth remains the more-likely possibility. As for “fibres,” the context of the line itself (a display of the BTK killer’s paranoia) indicates that the “fibres” are something which—if unremoved—could have been used to trace the BTK killer. Speaking of tracing the BTK killer, he’s (as ascertainable by “Check the fingerprints, go through the trash”) acutely aware of the methods necessary to cover up his own tracks, making his capture a difficult process.

That eventual capture has some foreshadowing in the lines “Maybe I just wanted some attention/Compulsion seeks its own way in rejection of the light.” Regarding “attention,” it’s documented that the BTK killer mailed untraceable messages to local TV stations via the mail because he craved public attention. Therefore, it’s apt that a word such as “Compulsion” is utilized since it’s an innate quality in the BTK killer—this craving is unremovable. Therefore, this internal desire functioned as a ‘justice’ of sorts since the BTK killer’s pride eventually undid him. One can also suggest that (from “seeks its own way) good will inevitably win over evil for no other reason than that the fucked-up parts of a person will undo any ‘progress’ made. All that factors into “in rejection of the light,” a phrase entailing that an urge towards celebrity supersedes any supposed “rejection” of infamy—a reappearance of Steven’s old theme of ‘significance’ in an incredibly dark form. What makes all of that karmic comes from knowing how the BTK killer was captured. See, when Dennis Rader began the mail-to-TV stations practice (after a decade-long hiatus), he sent something on floppy-disk (not before asking the police if such a thing could be traced). Ultimately, the cops lied and they discovered that the BTK killer was Dennis Rader.

Some of the most menacing lines in the song come from the last two in this verse: “Every story needs to have an ending/We might as well give up all this pretending and clear the air,” On one level, they register as the BTK killer’s attempt to rationalize his own murderous actions. On another, more-concerning level, the BTK killer’s usage of “story” and “give up all this pretending” contradict themselves by conflating fiction and fact. Such a detail perfectly illustrates the BTK killer’s willingness to manipulate actions, language, and details in order to benefit his own selfish goals of serial murder.

After a couple of revolutions to the pattern, Steven’s third set of lyrics arrives:

The night is crawling closer to the action. Your mouth is driving me into distraction, you talk too much. Well, every story needs to have an ending. We might as well give up all this pretending and clear the air.

One receives from the first line (“The night is crawling closer to the action”) a sense of the BTK killer anticipating the opportunity to murder another victim. That much is clear from his use of the word “action” as a synonym for the act of murder and the symbolism of “night” as a signal for the end of the victim’s life. However, there’s an internal contrast in the word “crawling.” On one level, that word-choice indicates dread, but there’s two sources of dread that the song refers to: that of the victim’s fear for her life and that of the BTK killer’s paranoia regarding capture.

Regarding the paranoia, the next line (“Your mouth is driving me into distraction, you talk too much”) conveys that and much more. First, the paranoia comes about by the phrase “you talk too much,” but that phrase also suggests other concerning details. Said details include the victim-blaming of “driving me” and the whole line’s sexist leanings. Said leanings are even more concerning considering that eight of the ten victims of the BTK killer were women.

Whereas the last two lines of “Well, every story needs to have an ending/We might as well give up all this pretending and clear the air” appear redundant to analyze (since they’re an echo of the end of the last verse), the context behind the lines renders their meaning different from their prior appearance. Remember how the previous usage of these lines illustrated the BTK killer’s selfishness and willingness to manipulate others? Now, this phrase conveys the opposite. Namely that—whether he knows it or not—the BTK killer’s days outside of prison are numbered.

Following this, there’s an extended instrumental section. First, there’s the presence of vocal harmonizations (at 7:27) acting in conjunction with Steven strumming his guitar (which has some sort of effects pedal applied to it). Then the song jumps back (at 7:49) into the familiar rhythm that’s bombastic and played in a 15/8 time signature—a rhythm whose off-kilter quality makes the transition to the next section seem all-the-more jarring. That next section (at 8:03) coincides with an increase in tempo, a change to a 3/4 time-signature, manic-sounding drums from Nic, and a riff of chromatic triplets played on Steven’s guitar and Nick’s bass that evokes a heart-racing sense of terror. That section and the ones that follow—which include the pattern in a higher key (at 8:24) and a set of lead droning-sustains supported by some frantic punk-like chord strumming (at 8:46)—provide the musical representation of one of the BTK killer’s victims running for her life.

Despite a drum solo (at 9:26) giving way to a swing rhythm (at 9:29) and a saxophone solo from Theo (at 9:39), the tension in this cluster of sections never stops. Not even after a heavy synth rhythm (at 11:50) jolts listeners after a rhythmic stop—a detail possibly symbolizing the BTK killer apprehending a runaway victim and/or killing a potential escapee.

That idea isn’t simply me being morbid. It has sonic evidence in the sections which follow. There’s definitely a slow build from atmospheric synth (at 11:59), the re-emergence of woodwinds out of near-silence (at 12:19). But in looking at sections such as the low-end droning sustains from Steven’s guitar (at 12:49), the re-emergence of both Nic’s drums and the piano (at 13:20), and the transition (at 14:30) before the fingerpicked guitar part which backs a long Theo Travis flute solo and Steven’s last lyrics, one reads feelings of slow-boiling-yet-muted anger, dread (probably the BTK killer dreading himself), and a pitiful lament. Almost as if—after a new murder—the BTK killer’s in a whirlwind of emotions and the listener sorts them out in the music just like the killer has to in his mind. In fact, it’s more possible for a listener to sort it out than for the killer since the killer never did so—he merely blamed others and gave way to his basest impulses.

With the appearance of a brisk, fingerpicked guitar part (at 14:40) from Steven, the rest of the band backs a long flute solo from Theo before Steven delivers the fourth and final set of lyrics:

A plague inside your home, I'm raider. Defiling all you own, raider. A cat among the crows, I'm raider. The butcher and his prose, I'm raider.

A blend of symbolism and actual fact permeate the first two lines: “A plague inside your home, I’m raider/Defiling all you own, raider.” One such fact coats the phrase “plague inside your home,” especially since this refers to the household of the Otero family, who the BTK killer slayed the mother, father, son, and daughter of the family (and marked Rader’s two male victims). This sense of murder relates to the phrase “Defiling all you own” because (in an odd sense) we only truly own our bodies/selves since without that, we’re nothing. Therefore, “Defiling” is the act of murder itself. However, “Defiling all you own” also has a secondary meaning in relation to an activity of the BTK killer’s. Namely that the BTK killer had a sexual fetish for women’s underwear, stole underpants from his victims, and wore them himself—defiling their possessions.

In a metaphorical sense, the line “A cat among the crows, I’m raider” vividly describes how the BTK killer operated over the span of several years. Indeed, the phrase “cat among the crows,” denotes a state of being on-the-prowl like a cat instead of being in flight like a crow. Such a comparison reflects the rate of the BTK’s murders growing more sporadic over time. To elaborate, the BTK killer killed five people in 1974, two in 1977, one in 1985, 1986, and one in 1991. That reduced rate suggests that the BTK killer grew more paranoid over time.

And the line which ends the song—“The butcher and his prose, I’m raider”—contains two points worth talking over. The first—“butcher and his prose”—functions as a summation of the BTK killer’s practice of murder and mailing to radio stations. Speaking of the mailing, the second point comes from the fact that “prose” registers as ironic. That irony stems from the factual detail that one of the letters sent to a local TV station consisted of a poem titled “Oh! Death to Nancy” (named for one of his victims), which put salt in the wound of the murder while mimicking the meter and rhyme scheme (both qualities associated with poetry, not prose) of the American folk song “O Death.”

Once Steven’s final lyrics wrap up, another long instrumental section arrives. But this one’s divided into two sections: climax and anti-climax. Regarding the climax, there’s the standard play-out of the electric variant of Steven’s finger-picked guitar patter. However, the exact moment of climax comes with the presence of what I’m referring to as a ‘Big Rock Ending’—a section where every musician plays a cacophonous mass of notes in a practice commonly reserved for ending a song in a live performance. Where anti-climax comes into the picture is that this ‘Big Rock Ending’ (in addition to appearing on a studio version of a song) doesn’t end the song. In fact, the song persists for a few more minutes afterwards, but in a manner that’s utterly drained of energy.

Even though “Raider II” is an improvisation-based piece of music, the fact that the demo of “Raider IV” contains a similar ‘climax/anti-climax’ construction for the ending makes one think that it’s a deliberate move on Steven’s part. Although this may be a reach, there’s probably symbolic significance to both the climax and the anti-climax in relation to the portrait of the BTK killer presented in the song’s lyrics. In the case of the ‘climax,’ it’s a representation of the BTK killer on a power-high and a sense of faux-triumphant chutzpah as a coping mechanism to the whirlwind of emotions evoked by the musical constructions of earlier sections. For the ‘anti-climax,’ that’s the bitter reality kicking down the door—that there’s nothing remotely glamorous about the BTK killer’s activities and that doing so requires a total destruction of one’s own conscience.

That destruction of conscience—a major theme in one of Steven’s earlier works (Porcupine Tree’s In Absentia)—is depicted in the ‘anti-climax’ section in a way that amounts to the music self-destructing in an arduous process. It’s an extremely avant-garde move from Steven and one that I have to tip my hat for having the nerve to pull off. Heck, one notable instance which springs to mind in recent memory of an artist ending a song in such a destructive fashion comes from Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails, whose song “The Background World” (which clocks at over eleven-and-a-half minutes) ends in a loop played 52 times with a gap of 1/10th of a second between iterations of the loop. Where sound screw-ups occur comes from the detail of each successive loop becoming more distorted than the last—to the point where the last half of the loop-sequence (which lasts for over seven minutes) becomes white-noise. Albeit white-noise with a (barely) discernible melody that’s only noticeable since it’s been burned into your brain powerfully enough to hear it over the distortion.

Anyways, before I start gushing on about how a collaboration between Steven Wilson and Trent Reznor would be a dream-come-true (I’ve already been prepping the NIN discography review series), let’s just move away from my favorite song on the album to the closing track.

• “Like Dust I Have Cleared from My Eye” (8:01)

Following the jazz-based sonic assault of “Raider II,” the soothing tones of “Like Dust I Have Cleared from My Eye” prove a breath of fresh air. Not only with the main body of the song, but also with the (admittedly overlong) four-minute harmonium outro—an outro which the live version of the song found on Get All You Deserve drastically cuts down. The arrangement for the main portion of the song remains the most immediately accessible song on disc two.

Lyrically, “Like Dust I Have Cleared from My Eye” concerns a failing relationship that the speaker finds healthier to leave than stay in—and the lines themselves are extremely bitter towards this person. That’s not the striking part. The striking part comes from how the serene music wildly contrasts with the bitterness of the lyrics. Heck, that’s true even if one chooses to see this song as the severing of a mentor-student bond instead of the splitting of a romantic/sexual relationship. And even then, the lack of pronouns in this song makes the other person’s gender ambiguous and able to be filled in by the listener.

In terms of guest musicians, “Like Dust I Have Cleared from My Eye” holds two faces. First up comes Tony Levin delivering his bass guitar parts. Second arrives the dependable Nic France pounding his drums.

The lyrics that Steven writes for this are in their (near) entirety printed below:

That's something that you're laughing at me And I hope you know what it is that you're laughing about. Cos it won't be long now 'til they're reeling you in The same situation, the same disappointment you bring. So I hope you're happy with the impression you made Deep in denial, like you planned it this way. But you're lost to me, like dust I have cleared from my eye. Your words have no meaning, so I stare up into the sky.

These opening two lines of “That’s something that you’re laughing at me/And I hope you know what it is that you’re laughing about” function as an introduction to the lyrical themes that the remaining seven lines will expand upon. And one of those themes is meaninglessness—exhibited by the fact that the topic behind “something” remains ambiguous and may matter less than the bitterness of the rest of the lyrics. That bitterness rears its head as early as “you’re laughing at me,” a phrase indicative of mockery and a signal that the bitterness of the lyrics are a reaction to a slight (or a perceived slight). Both of those qualities coalesce in “I hope you know,” a phrase which (when combined with the ambiguity of “something”) utilizes uncertainty to leave listeners in a similar state-of-mind as the person whom the speaker’s talking about.

Further developments regarding the characterization of the speaker emerge from the next two lines: “Cos it won’t be long now ‘til they’re reeling you in/The same situation, the same disappointment you bring.” In the very construction of the phrase “it won’t be long now,” there’s a smugness conveyed which is facilitated by the speaker having gone through a similar situation, so he uses a ‘one-size-fits-all’ philosophy to assume that the other person’s future is certain. Judging from “they’re reeling you in,” that smugness leaves the speaker to believe that the other person won’t emerge from this situation anywhere close to unscathed—a notion which leaves a listener to wonder what (if anything) warrants the speaker’s ‘holier-than-thou’ position. But a single word (“disappointment”) throws a wrench in things because it gives another reason for the speaker’s anger. That word suggests that the speaker once saw potential in this other person (maybe even the potential of a life together as lovers), but the other person squandered it. As a result, the speaker’s anger in this song registers as a mixture of pity for what could’ve been and reactionary rage at the perceived slight.

The final nail in the coffin appears in the form of the next two lines: “So I hope you’re happy with the impression you made/Deep in denial, like you planned it this way.” First of all, “I hope you’re happy” comes across as patronizing and scornful in an understated way. That sense of understatement fuels the layers of meaning behind “the impression you made/Deep in denial.” On the surface, that phrase entails that the speaker acknowledges that by abandoning the other person, he’s doing something as risky as what the other person did while acting in a less-than-ideal state-of-mind. A deeper dive into this phrase hinges on the potential ambiguity regarding “Deep in denial” since it’s left uncertain what the other person was or is in denial about. Given the context of the song, some possibilities include doubts about his/her sexuality, insecurities about commitment, or second-thoughts on career path. Ending this sequence comes “like you planned it this way,” a phrase informing how the “impression” struck the speaker—it hit with such a force that the speaker’s convinced there had to be confidence involved, even if the opposite (deep insecurities) is true.

While there’s only two lines left in this cluster, the first of which (“But you’re lost to me, like dust I have cleared from my eye”) is the densest one in the entire song since nearly every word warrants dissection. Right off the bat, “you’re lost” creates a link of continuity to the “impression” from the last two lines. Here, the sting of the “impression” is proven to be so strong that the speaker believes the other person’s problems are beyond repair. But the rest of the line consists of the non-literal past-tense (ascertainable by “have”) simile indicated by “like” which forms the title. First off, “dust” reflects a contaminant or a relic of the past that continues to cloud the speaker’s judgment. Next, “cleared” entails a cleansing in that this other person was (if the speaker’s reliable and not full of shit) a toxic person. Finally, “from my eye” informs listeners that the other person had negatively impacted how the speaker viewed the world. Although one can try to shoehorn a layer of autobiography by claiming that this phrase marks Steven’s final repudiation of the band structure of Porcupine Tree, that idea’s inconsistent with the fact that Steven ended that band while on good terms with Gavin, Colin, and Richard.

Despite the line “Your words have no meaning, so I stare up into the sky” not coming across as dense as the previous line, there’s still three elements to pick apart since it’s the conclusion of the speaker’s train of thought. First, “words have no meaning” entails that the speaker’s so thoroughly made up his mind that nothing the other person can say would make a difference. Such a notion as that connects to the end of the line via the connective of “so,” which imbues the entire line with a matter-of-fact tone that suggests that the whole thing is a process for the speaker. And that process concludes with the phrase “stare up into the sky” suggesting that the natural world contains more value than this other person ever did.

There’s one extra line that remains for Steven to sing:

Breathe in now... breathe out now...

Although “Breathe in now…breathe out now” functions as a singular line, it’s one with two meanings. The first depends on the detail of this line outlining an inhale-exhale process. That aforementioned detail suggests that the speaker will move on from his misfortune as easily as breathing since the other person means nothing to him. The second interpretation of that line entails that the speaker’s correct about everything he says about the other person and that all this self-deceit comes as naturally to this other person as breathing.

• Final Thoughts:

In many respects, Grace for Drowning marks a stylistic bridge between Insurgentes and The Raven That Refused to Sing (and Other Stories) in that it accentuates the eclectic qualities of the former while introducing elements that wouldn’t take full-flight until the latter. As such, it’s a transitional album between Porcupine Tree and his solo career—appropriate considering that its Steven’s first solo album following Porcupine Tree’s breakup. So Grace for Drowning follows up both Insurgentes and The Incident in equal measure.

And honestly, Grace for Drowning is better than both Insurgentes and The Incident. Sure, it’s a double-album, but it’s one of the few double-albums where I can listen to the whole thing in one sitting and not feel fatigued by the end. In fact, I feel like the time flew by as quickly as if it were a single-album. For examples of other double-albums where that’s the case, there’s The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway by Genesis, The Fragile by Nine Inch Nails (which is a good twenty minutes longer than Grace for Drowning), Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dylan, and Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence by Dream Theater.

That lack of fatigue comes from the strength of Steven’s growth as a musician and as one of the few examples left of a ‘musical auteur.’ Here marks the moment that Steven truly marched to the beat of his own drum—something true of his work to this day, regardless of whatever sonic direction he chooses to take. Considering that the genres explored by Steven include noise, ambient, progressive rock, pop, jazz, psychedelic jams, metal, space-rock, electronic, industrial, and drone, his stylistic envelope makes him one of the few musicians that remain impossible to pin down to a single genre. Like David Bowie, it’s difficult to predict what direction Steven’s sound will go next, but that always makes for an engaging ride.

Such an engaging ride stems from the excellent songs Steven provides on Grace for Drowning. In terms of memorable melodies, “Deform to Form a Star” and “Postcard” are two of his stronger tracks (even if the former’s close to eight minutes long unedited (a five minute edit was released on the Transience compilation)). Regarding experimental touches, “No Part of Me,” “Index,” “Track One,” and “Like Dust I Have Cleared From My Eye” deliver in spades. But the aspect of Grace for Drowning that fascinates me the most are the jam-based excursions—something hinted at with “No Twilight Within the Courts of the Sun” from Insurgentes, but not to this extent—found in “Remainder the Black Dog” and “Raider II.” Here, Steven explores a new genre for him and does so with the confidence of a specialist.

Overall, Grace for Drowning marks Steven’s strongest solo effort up to this point. It’s not for nothing that I refer to it as the start of a ‘golden trio’ of solo albums (released from 2011 to 2015) that mark some of the most rewarding music released this decade. Even if Steven trounces this album with both 2013’s The Raven That Refused to Sing (and Other Stories) and 2015’s Hand. Cannot. Erase. (which is in a dead-heat with Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly as ‘Album of the Decade: 2010’s’), Grace for Drowning stands as the first sign of Steven’s capability to stand alone.

• Footnotes:

• [1] From Deadwing (2005), the lyric in question being the titular refrain.

• [2] Porcupine Tree – “Sentimental” (from Fear of a Blank Planet, 2007)

• [3] Steven Wilson – “Get All You Deserve” (from Insurgentes, 2008)

• [4] The source of this quote being a 2017 interview with Steven Wilson. This response stemmed from a question regarding domestic terrorism based upon religion (which was relevant to the lyrics of “Detonation” from To The Bone)

• The Next Five Reviews:

• Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine (1989)

• Steven Wilson - The Raven That Refused to Sing (and Other Stories) (2013)

• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (1976)

  • Nine Inch Nails - Broken EP (1992)

• Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase. (2015)

• This one will be a very special review that will take slightly longer than usual to write. Mostly because of the absurd amount of details related to the lyrics, packaging, and supplementary materials that seem to be designed for the sole purpose of mind-fuck. I'm open to putting out more Tom Petty reviews between my review of Broken and this album in order to keep some things at the ready so I'm not gone for too long. Just expect this to be potentially the longest review that I'll ever write whenever it's finished.

#stevenwilson #gracefordrowning #prog #jazz #nickbeggs #nicfrance #tonylevin #jordanrudess #theotravis #bencastle #2011 #music #review