Grace For Drowning＜限定盤＞

PORCUPINE TREEを中心に各種プロジェクトで八面六臂の活動を繰り広げる多彩なアーティスト、英Kscopeから発表された'11年作が英Transmission Recordingsより2枚組の限定アナログ盤で'23年新装再発!

KING CRIMSONのPat Mastelotto(dr)、Tony Levin(b)、GONG/SOFT MACHINE LEGACYのTheo Travis(woodwind)、DREAM THEATERのJordan Rudess(p)、Steve Hackett BANDのNic Beggs(stick/b)等々多数のゲストを迎え、前作の路線を継承しつつよりダイナミックで映像的な音世界を展開。以前より交流の深いDave Stewartによる流麗にしてダイナミックなオーケストレーション・アレンジが夢想的で深遠な世界観を構築する中を漂う、独白のようなボーカル/ギター/メロディの繊細な美しさは素晴らしい内容。前作よりもヴォーカルの比重を増した上、耽美/暴力/抒情性と多面的な要素/構成/展開を絶妙に融合/展開させた秀作です!!

For prolific British progressive rocker Steven Wilson, the two-CD set Grace for Drowning is his second official solo album, following 2008's Insurgentes. Recording under his own name, Wilson tends to fall somewhere between his popular Porcupine Tree group project and his ambient recordings as Bass Communion. Grace for Drowning's two discs are divided into one called Deform to Form a Star and another called Like Dust I Have Cleared from My Eye, both named after tracks on them. In the relatively sparse lyrics that Wilson sings with a calm, British-accented tenor, he seems melancholy at first, apparently suffering from the aftermath of a romantic breakup. "There's nothing left for me to say or do," he declares in "Postcard." By the second disc, he has become angrier about the situation, but the closing title track finds him reaching resolution and moving on. The words are spread out over music that builds and ebbs in a manner that allows for different styles and soloing by Wilson and a few musical guests. He is not abashed about evoking his prog predecessors. The obvious antecedent is Pink Floyd, particularly recalled in the space rock of "No Part of Me." The 23-minute "Raider II," coming toward the end, allows room for a flute-and-piano section that could have been excerpted from a Traffic album as well as guitar-bass-drum sections in rapid 6/4 time suggestive of Yes. By the end, Wilson has subsided into an ambient coda on "Like Dust I Have Cleared from My Eye," as if readying himself for the next Bass Communion album. Grace for Drowning has a particular conception in terms of its emotional journey from sadness through anger to acceptance, but it is also just another in a lengthy discography of albums by Wilson under various names in relatively similar styles. ~ William Ruhlmann