Review: Steven Wilson, Warwick Arts Centre 15.3.18

The Warwick Arts Centre is something or other in order to fluff out an appropriate beginning to a review.

British musician Steven Wilson has spent the best part of twenty years on an uphill slope to mainstream exposure. Leading the much-missed Porcupine Tree for the first 100 years of his career, after putting them on ice and embarking on a successful solo jaunt he has continued to draw in audiences and earn a well-deserved reputation for quality music and having a formidable live show.

Tonight, his tour in support of new 'progressive pop' album To The Bone brings him and superbly talented solo band back to home shores. Having previously graced beautiful European cities, where better to progress to than Coventry?

In the first of many highlights of this damp Thursday evening, the venue allow for a seat swap for a few extra quid after your correspondent got the seating map the wrong way round and happily paid £40 for the back centre seat, instead of the front. Shelling out on the night results in being four rows from the front, sadly resulting in some of the impact of the impressive new visuals diminishing somewhat.

The Butterworth Hall is something of a large lecture theatre - the stage is about a foot off the ground, and there is a greater sensation of the performers and audience being in the same room, rather than the usual physical gap between both parties.

Pictured: record audience numbers

The setlist follows the same rough outline as previous tours: two main sets split by a twenty-minute piss break and some extra songs tacked on in the encore. It's generous in length, covering around 19 songs and indicating the same thoughtfulness Wilson gives to his music and which songs to show off - some mainstays of previous setlists face off against a smattering of new To The Bone material: Nowhere Now and Pariah kick things off, after a short film, Israeli musician Ninet Tayeb appearing on the new projection system, with the cinematic epic Pariah and the sliding tackle of People Who Eat Darkness, with another winning accompanying video from animator Jess Cope.

The very show itself is an inherent bonus, as Wilson already has the Midlands area 'covered' with an upcoming date at the prestigious Birmingham Symphony Hall, providing some relief to Coventrians sick of decades of venturing to neighbouring Birmingham to see a show. It's strange however that Wilson continues (self-deprecatingly and with self-awareness, however) to express personal preference for standing shows and the greater freedom of enthusiam-expression that they allow - yet every show on this leg is seating-only.

Surely every major region has a more rough-and-ready sticky-floored sweatbox to accommodate (step forward, Wolves Civic) to balance out the swankier ones (good morrow, Symphony Hall), and Wilson could have trod the boards barefoot in, say, the Academy - offering as it would a combination of standing and seating.

Anyway.

Wilson gets around this somewhat by instructing the audience to stand for the grinningly defiant 'Permanating', where middle-aged curmudgeons get a boogie on and the stage - and the rest of the room - becomes a huge disco. It's so much fun you almost want a chunk of the show to carry on in the same vein. Wilson however faces a difficult task whenever he hits the road in choosing the right combination of material from his seemingly never-ending back catalogue, a rapidly expanding world that grows in size faster than you can get into it. Indeed, he has more hours of music to his name than there are people in the world.

Rubbish pic added to fill space

He always rises admirably to the task, however, and somehow manages to make unlikely bedfellows stand shoulder to shoulder in the set without any loss of theme, quality, or momentum. The much-loved Porcupine Tree track Arriving Somewhere... But Not Here opens the second set before the aforementioned Permanating and by some weird musical voodoo the two are unquestioningly Wilsonian yet are some of the most wildly different examples of Wilson you could place together.

As the man himself points out later, when doing a Billy Brag-style rendition of Even Less using just an electric guitar and none of his cohorts, there are tons of songs his slightly younger fans (i.e. under 40) never got the chance to hear, and they all his songs anyway, so Wilson continues to pepper his setlists with well-recieved renditions of Porcupine Tree tracks, slotting in surprisingly well alongside his solo material.

In celebration of Deadwing and In Absentia having long-awaited reissues on vinyl, surprising inclusions of The Creator Has a Mastertape and Heartattack in a Layby also appear - sounding so damn powerful you suddenly realise there are no barriers to what Wilson can draw from his extensive back catalogue (Storm Corrosion material has been played, never forget). Can we expect some Bass Communion on the next tour?

To The Bone's predecessors Hand.Cannot.Erase. and the 41/2 EP continue to survive into the new era with the deployment of instrumental Vermillioncore later in the evening, with Ancestral and Home Invasion/Regret #9 making welcome appearances during the opening set, continuing to feel at home just about anywhere despite being removed from the wider context of the Hand.Cannot.Erase. album. The sprawling Regret #9 guitar solo originally laid down by Guthrie Govan (in one take, legend has it) continues to be a litmus test for the prowess of Wilson's latest stringsman, and new recruit Alex Hutchings ably proves his worth on it.

Porcupine Tree's memory refuses to budge as the deathless (ha) Lazarus adapts well to the new visual presentation and the monolithic, lumbering beast of Sleep Together stomps around the room and erodes the vibrational integrity of the architecture with its downtuned power. While the prospect of the band ever functioning again continues to fadeaway (pun intended), Wilson's solo lineups continue to knock out impressive and satisfying renditions.

Song of I, Detonation and The Same Asylum As Before round out the rest of the second set, being Wilson's first ever 'sexy' song, another prog winner and a balls-out rocker respectively. The former gains more power in a live setting and continues to show off the new projection system and Detonation showcases the band's enviable tightness yet again.

The aforementioned just-Wilson Even Less finishes proceedings before the inevitable The Raven That Refused to Sing forms the habitual closing number. A Spinal Tap moment where the video fails to load on three attempts brings everything back to Earth a little, but without diminishing the show in any way - rather, an inadvertent opportunity to remind all present that for all the musical virtuosity and presentational bells and whistles, things can actually go wrong. It is quickly forgotten as one of Wilson's very best compositions draws an unforgettable evening to a close, and yet another unmissable tour by Steven Wilson gets properly underway.

Review: Muse - 'Drones'

The world continues to resemble an appallingly-written sci-fi movie by every passing day, so it feels especially righteous to have a fresh slab of music from popular rock's most endearing riff-wielding commentators, Muse. 

Album number seven, with the band noting a marked return to the primal guitar-bass-drums setup of their earlier works, comes with its own narrative: indeed, Matt, Dom and Chris have even expressed enthusiasm for Drones to be adapted into some form of musical.

Possibly to nix the allure of potential album leaks, Muse have pre-empted the release of Drones with not just the expected slew of singles, but approximately half the album. Psycho was the first out the gate, providing a musical home for a guitar riff that Bellamy has been throwing around for almost all of the band's history. 

The Drill Sergeant barking that precedes it is one of two interludes on the album, recalling Tool's fondness for such between-song pieces that allow the listener to breath and take a detour through disembodied planes before stumbling directly back into the album's narrative. 

Dead Inside followed, despite this Undisclosed Desires-turned-nasty stuttering disco stomper actually opening the album, possibly to allay fears of Bellamy talking a load of bells about the supposed return to Planet Rock. When received by the masses, it prompted confusion - it wasn't pureblood rock, but wasn't meat-and-potatoes either, proving Muse hadn't lost their appetite for exploration.

Next up, in both pre-album releases as well as Drones' actual running order, cometh Mercy and Reapers, which history may pinpoint as the overall album's standout tracks. Mercy proudly shows off its musical lineage, carrying several elements from past songs such as Starlight, Follow Me as well as setlist cornerstone Stockholm Syndrome, juicing the ingredients into a fantastic slice of glittercannon pop-rock.

Reapers takes the madness further with a so-so verse that gives way triumphantly to Rage Against The Machine-turned-glam guitar work, featuring a fabulously jubilant  - and dare I say it, sassy - guitar solo with the greatest chorus of the whole album. A surefire gem.

The Handler sits stubbornly at the album's core, guitar riff reaching out in several directions like a drowsy belligerent octopus. It provides the uneasiest experience amongst the tracklisting, but not without showcasing Muse's songwriting prowess.

The second of the interludes, JFK, features the great man himself blathering before Bellamy and co kick the door down with Defector, (yet) another monstrously rocking track that wields its hammerblow riffs and Queen-esque backing vocals, Matt in a pleasingly defiant mood that contrasts with the negativity preceding it over the course of some of the album's first half. 

After the usual dizzying carousel of thick-stringed riffery, bombast and epic themes, Revolt is a not entirely unpleasant prospect but its city-stomping predecessors leave such a mark that it nearly drops the baton. It may please those who wish for a simpler song, but history may consign it to the dusty corner of unloved filler tracks (see also: Explorers and Guiding Light).

Then again, it may be the intention to wind down the musical intensity as the narrative reaches its conclusion. Aftermath almost recalls the woozy sway of past tracks such as Blackout and the three-part Exogenesis Symphony, but is slightly too watery and ultimately fails to make a meaningful impression.

Ten-minute-monster The Globalist pointedly defies any notion of bringing things to a gentle halt with a heady mix of unadulterated fearlessness, albeit with slightly wobbly execution. Whilst not the greatest thing Muse have ever committed to tape, it inarguably succeeds in marking out Muse as one of the most interesting acts to tap the Top 10 on the shoulder before lending it a copy of 1984. 

Closing this chapter in Muse's history is the album's title track, in which Bellamy clones himself and forces the assembled Matts at Manson-point to all sing at the same time. It's a strange soup of the man exploring the different levels of his still-brilliant voice, but also sounds like several vocal warm-up takes being played at the same time. As album closers go, only time will have the final word on whether it truly works or not.

A cabal of longtime Musers wait, agonised, for Muse to return to the form they built their career and legend on. Drones doesn't completely hark back to those times, because nostalgia is a backwards glance and Muse have never done anything else except march into the future. For that, they cannot be criticised. 

7.5/10

Paul Together Now: Sir Macca Brings His 'Out There!' tour to Birmingham

Few, if any, stand bigger in the pantheon of aren’t-you-dead-yet pop stars than Paul McCartney. Having sold more albums than there are stars in the sky, with a ready repertoire of the most enviable hysteria-inciting pop hymns known to man, delivered by a backing band with more chemistry than a Breaking Bad binge, few have aged as gracefully as Macca.

McCartney is currently carbon-dated at 72, yet all external evidence defies this – the hair, the between-song sassy banter, and the sheer energy put his heel-snapping protégés to shame: the marathon length of tonight’s 40-strong set clocks in at a buttock-numbing two-and-a-half hours.

He and band bring an infectious energy and gusto to the proceedings, leading a hip-shaking conga through Beatles and Wings tracks rarely, if ever, aired before. The brave decision to leave the first undeniable gem until the third song – Can’t Buy Me Love – allows the far-travelled disciples to find their seats without missing the unmissable, but also sets a slightly sedentary precedent: with so much time to fill, Macca & Co set about darting around furtively in his glistening back catalogue. 

Unfortunately, that leaves slight gaps between the iron-clad hits.

The result sucks some of the momentum from the show. It is the way of all musicians, a problem so great that someone even of McCartney’s venerable statesmanship cannot escape: a shorter set of greatest hits, or a longer one that finds room for forgotten songs?

Deep cuts please the obsessive fans, but they are outnumbered by those who’d rather hear the immortal paens and go home again: the polarity in mid-song audience response is irritating, but thankfully allayed by rapturous arena-wild cheering after each song is put to bed.

Such quibbles are washed away when the immensity of a state visit from someone as celebrated as Macca is taken into account, along with the rarity of his visits (1990 – 2003 – 2015), and the sheer spectacle of it all. His voice, one of popular music’s immortal crown jewels, is understandably slightly ragged in parts. Thankfully, and in defiance of the natural ageing process, McCartney still greets each song with due respect, to satiating results.

8.5/10

Review: Bumblefoot - Little Brother is Watching

Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal hasn’t had a chance to properly grace us with his brand of methodical musical madness for quite some time. For those who wondered what the feck was up with Guns N’ Roses these days and investigated, you’ll be aware that Thal has spent considerable time lending his  guitar wizardry to them. Now his tenure may have reached a conclusion, and we have Little Brother is Watching, his first full-length since 2008’s Abnormal.

And boy, is it welcome. Brilliantly bright lead guitars permeate Thal’s signature flavours of slightly cartoonish modern pop-rock eccentricities, where a vocal hook takes residence in your brain and forces you to hum it, before he utilises his stunning string-melting shredtastic sorcery and tastefully kicks the door down with a good old guitar solo.

Indeed, one of Thal’s many gifts is to know exactly when to unleash his formidable ability and give a song just the right guitar solo: he also knows when not to, proving equally adept at allowing his axe to sing in its own voice that melodically duets with the music – and with Thal’s own voice, which is impressive in itself.

Abnormal was seen as the ‘evil twin’ to 2005’s bright-eyed Normal, and appeared to take on a punk edge to some of the tracks, with cuts like Piranha proving ferocious. Little Brother is Watching places itself unapologetically in the pop-rock arena, with witty and touching lyricisms duelling with tasty riffs, singalong leads and distinctive vocals that deserve to help establish Ron Thal as a force to be celebrated.

Overall, Little Brother is Watching already has the competition pinned to the wall. If there is a God, it will coax listeners away from mainstream pap and towards a multi-talented, honest and musically fearless individual who has proven himself capable of great things and worthy of your attention.

He’s far more than a Bumblefootnote.