Porcupine Tree - The Incident

The Incident is a solid, very proggy and very long album. A little less metal than the band has been recently, and fairly ambitious, spanning two discs. The first disc lasts about an hour and is a single song cycle appropriately called "The Incident", broken into 14 tracks that do overlap quite a bit. There are only about six tracks that last long enough to develop their own identity, with the others bridging the gaps, developing some sounds and ideas, and providing breathers. Riffs and entire verses can pop up repeatedly in various places, and there's a real cohesive feel to the whole thing without it seeming like one long song usually.

The second disc is fairly divorced from the first, being about EP length and tacking on four more songs to the whole thing's running time. Honestly, I thought it would have been better served as its own separate release. The whole thing lasts roughly 80 minutes with both discs, and I kind of lose interest by the time the first part is over. I could just listen to them separately on my own, but I'm kind of a stickler about listening to entire albums when I play music, and the second disc just drags. It's not bad, it's just too much. Still, it's hard to dislike anything on this record. I won't bring up individual songs because there's not much point - if you've listened to them you know what to expect, and if you don't then I won't do a good job of explaining them anyway. I prefer this band when they make more traditional albums instead of this longer-winded, more conceptual stuff, but it's still all right.