Look, there’s Osmium favorite Steven Wilson with his eighth studio album. This new one is called The Overview. It turns out that this is not an announcement of a career overview but a reference to the feeling/effect that astronauts experience when they look at our ‘pale blue dot’ from space: a cognitive shift, often a heightened sense of connection with other people and the earth as a whole (thank you, Wikipedia). It probably is connected to the vulnerability of our rather small planet.
Anyway, a new Steven Wilson album. But that doesn’t say too much, because the man can go in many directions. The side I like the most is that of soul-wrenching, sometimes (almost) literally tear-jerkingly beautiful songs like Happy Returns / Ascendant Here On – which captures human mortality in a painful “But I’m feeling kind of drowsy now, so I’ll finish this tomorrow” –, the rather “Prince-purple” Pariah of To The Bone and all-time favorite and in memoriam The Raven That Refused To Sing. Beside that, there is the intelligently prog-rocking side that invites you to listen with your mouth open, wondering how this can come from human hands and brains. I’m still on board! It becomes a bit more difficult when Wilson shapes the music too much into a concept. That sometimes seemed to be the case in the clinical loops and more distant beeps of The Future Bites and (to a lesser extent) on The Harmony Codex, which does contain another very beautiful, sensitive track with Rock Bottom.
For those who were a bit fed up with the electronic side, the following line from the promo sheet will probably hit home (I have already seen many cheers on social media): “With The Overview, Steven Wilson returns to progressive rock”. Two sentences later, it is added that he also combines elements of sparkling electronics and post-rock. So, we still don’t know much. What we do know is that The Overview lasts 42 minutes and only has two songs. First track Objects Outlive Us lasts no less than 23 minutes and a bit, while the subsequent title track exceeds 18 minutes. This is always promising in progland!
First: let’s give Objects Outlive Us – which is secretly divided into eight subtitles – a spin. Singing crystal clear, the main character calmly leads us into a spatial soundscape that quickly turns into a growing vocal interplay. The vocals are laid down layer upon layer until a Beatles-esque sound is created (or perhaps even more in the direction of the Electric Light Orchestra, but that band has also heard a bit of The Beatles). Impressive, but a bit later it really gets beautiful. The accompanying text sheet tells us that this is Objects: Meanwhile. In this part of the composition we hear the melancholic prog that we are used to from the songs mentioned in the second paragraph of this review. Lyrically, the part also leans somewhat towards the loneliness of Happy Returns: “A shopping bag broke sending eggs and flour crashing. Down to the ground, just like star clusters smashing. But no one will give her a glance.” The musical theme and the vocal lines are immediately catchy. If you want to know if there is something for you on this record, this might be a good place to start. Although you should look for it somewhere in the middle of the first track. I suspect that Wilson himself would shudder at the thought of Objects Outlive Us being listened to in parts. But he did end up cutting it up for a video. So here’s your chance.
You want it a bit more intense? No problem! Bouncing thick strings take over while in the higher guitar work a feedback that is barely controllable. We have clearly left the our base in space while the earthly concerns of a new job and caring for the elderly are set against an imploding black hole. And so the musical motifs and atmospheres follow each other without detracting from the textual theme, but also without being limited by each other. It is the freedom that the last records perhaps had less of, that makes this one so good. And I’m only fifteen minutes in.
Keyboards part then? Sure, and let’s have the bass and guitar play against each other for a while, before another fairly free guitar solo sets things up in the run-up to a longer and quite tough instrumental piece. The “returns to progressive rock” part is mercilessly filled in here and it is precisely that lack of compromise that makes it so attractive. But not as attractive as the again long instrumental piece The Heat Death Of The Universe in which the last tears are squeezed from a guitar in a beautiful solo.
So much for the good news! No, that’s lame, but The Overview (the song) does start off considerably less “easy”. The track opens with electronic loops and coldly pronounced measures of moons and stars. The alienation it gives is of course fully intended, because how to grasp the size of the universe? Here we hear the coldness of The Future Bites. It’s clever that the Bowie-like A Beautiful Infinity I is seamlessly added to it: “What seemed important now like dust inside the squall”. Beautiful, how detachment here gets a sound in Wilson’s voice(s).
Oh, and I don’t have to tell you that the sound of the record is more than on point. Even with small earplugs you feel yourself moving in a space as big as a church. Until you are thrown into a corner by a few fierce guitar strokes that fall apart in different frequencies (A Beautiful Infinity II). And then suddenly the physics lesson comes back. It is as if master Steven wants to subtly point out to the listener that those sides of him are not so different at all, but are all part of the same spectrum. Lesson learned then, when another compelling solo in Infinity Measured In Moments gives fitting substance to the title.
The promo sheet calls The Overview Steven Wilson’s most daring work to date. I don’t know if I agree. The album doesn’t really color outside the box that far (although an album with two tracks of around twenty minutes each is no everyday work). What The Overview is, above all, is a compelling musical story in which emotion and intelligence side by side without one gaining the upper hand over the other. But, perhaps even better, it is a wonderful listening experience. Put it on, close your eyes and travel from one discovery to the next for 42 minutes.
Score:
92/100
Label:
Fiction Records, 2025
Tracklisting:
- Objects Outlive Us
- The Overview
Line-up:
- Steven Wilson – Vocals, instruments
- Craig Blundell – Drums
- Adam Holzman – Keyboards
- Randy McStine – Guitar
Links: