Eliminated
Home Invasion
Ancestral
Promoted
Three Years Older
Hand Cannot Erase
Routine
To The Bone
We’ve finally reached the end of the discography! The final album, and Steven Wilson’s fifth solo album, was actually released in August 2017. So there’s at least one benefit to the delays.
While this album was meant to be a continuation of the previous solo albums, things took a bit of a twist when Wilson’s solo band had a large personnel change. The Aristocats, a side project featuring Guthrie Govan and Marco Minnemann, had a scheduling conflict with Wilson’s tour that led to the two musicians involved being replaced. Minnemann also posted a rant on facebook that suggested the musicians had a falling out. Possibly for this reason, To the Bone shows Wilson going back to his older style of using different musicians on a solo album depending on the song. While Nick Beggs and Adam Holzmann are still involved from the previous albums’ lineup, other bassists and keyboard players were also brought in (Beggs only appears on one song, while Wilson plays most of the bass on the album). Wilson uses other guitarists, but most of the guitar is also handled by him instead. It seems that Wilson was consciously moving away from establishing this solo outfit as another band like Porcupine Tree, but more a group of session musicians who are used when needed. Conversely, vocalist Ninet Tayeb’s role has increased on this album. She appears on 6 of the 11 tracks and sings lead on three of them.
The album also features a decisive move away from retro sounding prog rock in favor of a much more commercial sound. The album was heavily inspired by 80s pop such as Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, and Tears For Fears. The album has been characterized as “progressive pop.” The songs are, for the most part, shorter and feature lots of keyboards and electronic sounds. It’s not a concept album, but many of the songs are thematically linked with references to modern technology and general commentary on the internet age. It’s not exactly new lyrical territory for Wilson, but it fits the music.
The album so far seems to be a success, although it has once again divided fans. Those who like the more hard prog side of Wilson have voiced disappointment, while those who enjoy the more commercial direction of his recent output are satisfied. Mixed reviews aside, it seems that Wilson is becoming increasingly recognized and successful with each album. He has managed to reach a wide audience that is unheard of for a prog artist, while still having complete creative control over his music. The album has sold very well and, while it didn’t chart as high as Hand Cannot Erase, it still managed to crack the top 100 in the US.
To the Bone is an appropriate place for this survivor to end because it seems to be the end of an era for Steven Wilson. He has mentioned that following the release of the album, he may decide to move on to other things. He has expressed interest in film scoring and possibly even writing a film. He also has several other musical projects that were not explored in this Survivor. Just this year, a video game was made based on Drive Home, called Last Day of June, which also featured new music composed by Wilson. It’s hard to say what’s next for him; he is scheduled to tour through most of 2018 and then at that point your guess is as good as mine. I expect him to take a break from his solo outfit, maybe further pursue soundtracks or a larger collaboration with Ninet.
While the survivor still has some time to go, the discography portion has finished and we’re now up to speed with Wilson’s main discography. Thanks to everyone who stuck with it so far. Hopefully at the very least they provided some context into one of Prog’s most highly regarded musicians today, even if it didn’t necessarily make you a fan. And for those who were already familiar with his work, I hope maybe it helped you rediscover a couple hidden gems. Personally, I went into this only really being familiar with In Absentia and Hand Cannot Erase. I’ll say more about my overall opinion at the end of the game, but I am glad I got to finally go through his entire discography. I can see how he got so popular, but at the same time I’m not sure if I see him as the genius that he is so frequently regarded as.