Steven Wilson - 4.5 (decimal version)

Early year release for Steven Wilson's stop-gap mini album. Though at 37 minutes, this would count as a fully fledged album in the old analogue days. What we have is some odds and sods from his last few studio recordings which didn't fit the bill as they tend to say. The opening track "My Book of Regrets" has a distinctly XTC flavour to my ears. Wilson's vocals even take on a Colin Moulding accent! The other tracks are a mix of instrumental pieces, which are slight but effective none the less, especially "Vermillioncore" which hints at a more riffing, metallic direction perhaps. The final track is a remodel of Porcupine Trees "Don't Hate Me". Here is it has been given a splendid facelift, with chorus vocals by Ninet Tayeb, great Fender Rhodes playing by Adam Holzman, a blow-out sax solo by Theo Travis, all ending with a beautifully elegiac guitar solo by Wilson himself. Nice to see him play solo again! The whole thing sounds sumptuous on the blu-ray hi-res, though I would have liked the CD and blu-ray packaged together and why not include the blu-ray bonus Lazarus (2015) on the CD? That's a bit mean! But all in all this will do for now quite nicely!

 

 

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