It is difficult to start a description of Porcupine Tree without the words pink and floyd. But it would also be unfair to leave it at that, as the band's musical milkshake is blended with ambient beats, spacey samples, lush new wave keyboards, and - unlike latter day Pink Floyd - decent songs.
Porcupine Tree's third and latest release, their first American release, is pastoral and serene while hinting at underlying melancholy. Building from sparse synthesizers into a Pink Floyd billow in the opening track, the album then progresses largely uninterrupted through lengthy chill- out excursions, organic jams, and shorter meditative songs. An other-worldly space capsule aesthetic pervades the album, derived from the open-ended guitar work, gurgling keyboards, and inter-steller lyrics and samples.
The Sky Moves Sideways could in fact become a favorite of planetarium owners, bridging the musical gap between Pink Floyd laser shows and the intentionally spacey music that accompanies normal programs. The sample of Richard Nixon's call to the Apollo 11 crew even has pseudo- documentary value in such a context.
Relaying on live instrumentation, this English band occupies stages in a way that most current ambient bands can never aspire to; fortunately, they don't descend into epic soloing and art-wank experimentation that generally plagues progressive rock acts. The result is an interesting combination of British shoe-gazing, the neo-prog rock of bands like Levitation, electronic atmospherics of early 80s groups like Ultravox or Visage, and contemporary post-Orb ambient.
Head Porcupine Steve Wison obviously loves middle-period Pink Floyd, but thankfully shies from other sections of the prog rock canon, with no traces of Yes, Marillion, etc. The experimental edges of Pink Floyd have also been shaved away; Porcupine Tree keeps the unmistakably Gilmore guitars, sultry background singers, and layers of keyboards but ditches the wobbly Syd Barret material and angular elements Roger Waters might have added. Porcupine Tree's take on Pink Floyd is shimmering, comfortable, etherial.
Wison vows he'll bring progressive rock into the 90s. Porcupine Tree is more engaging than earlier attempts at this task, such as the Darkside or Levitation. The use of some modern equipment makes the album actually progressive, while the live instruments give the album more substance than prog-rock-influenced purveyors of ambient house. Wison's deep space probes are more stimulating than the infinitely looped beats and samples of your wholly electronic ambient group, but he also jettisons the dub influence and therefore situates himself in rock territory. The result is worth hearing - though if you absolutely hate Pink Floyd the album is probably too far from the Orb, Global Communications, et al to appeal to you.
