Storm Corrosion's buildup will leave you with a major letdown

The working relationship between Opeth's Mikael Akerfeldt and Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree is well documented. These prog rock heavyweights have worked together on producing Opeth records, but they've never made an album together. At least not until Storm Corrosion.

Storm Corrosion is the concluding piece of a trilogy that began with the 2011 releases from Wilson and Akerfeldt. Opeth's Heritage was a twisted jaunt through the deepest depths of a 70s folk/metal inspired wonderland. The band covered all bases, with hints of Rainbow, Black Sabbath, and Jethro Tull shining through.

Meanwhile, Wilson's sophomore solo soundscape operated on a different approach. The cover of Grace for Drowning, like the music within, was soaked in a shade of crimson -- King Crimson, to be exact. The sprawling double disc set strongly recalled his love for these progressive rock titans, and produced more than a few tunes suitable for beckoning the end times.

Although culled from the same era, both Heritage and Grace for Drowning managed to stand apart. So it should be no surprise that a good deal of anticipation has built up over what Act III might deliver.

Storm Corrosion brings together two trademark aspects of these artists. On the one hand, you have the heavy nature influence found throughout many of Opeth's early records. The photos in the booklet are grainy and faded, like someone was playing this music from the middle of a field long, long ago. The music is designed to sound the way the pictures look, so to speak.

But there is an ominous undercurrent swirling around just under the surface, something darker and much more sinister.  From time to time, you will be hit with off kilter and trippy passages that harken back to the most demented moments of 1970s psychedelia. They appear infrequently, but pop up so unexpectedly that their presence provides a subtle coloring for the entire album. It's easy to see Wilson's hand in this.

The opener, "Drag Ropes," gets the album off to an inauspicious start. Akerfeldt starts off with some slightly cheesy and melodramatic vocals, which leads into the first major drone section of the album. Steven Wilson comes in singing a bizarre line about how the truth can now be told, while organs and strings clash in the background. Each progression sounds like it's building up to something, but end of the song simply dumps you back into the initial verse that Akerfeldt started off singing.

The title track is the true standout. It contains a sampling of all the album's major elements, and does so flawlessly. The first six minutes of the song feature some beautiful acoustic guitar playing accompanied by Wilson's gentle vocal. It eventually fades into trebley sounding strings that combine with chaotic guitar strumming to create a dark and unnerving background ambiance. Eventually, some light guitar playing can be heard in the background, and the droning in the foreground slowly cuts out like a radio losing transmission. You are then left with nothing but a beautiful riff, and Akerfeldt returns with a haunting final verse.

As the album progresses, however, its main fault becomes clear. The progressions in each song seem to be build up to something. However, you never really get a payoff, and as a result the album doesn't seem to know where it's going.

The opening to "Hag" is minimalist to the extreme, with Wilson slowly enunciating each line of each verse. This sounds like something we've heard him do before. From there, you get the only truly heavy section on the entire album, although the guitar and drum work are coated in a layer of menacing fuzz. I personally like the effect; it's a great continuation of the faded and worn feel that Akerfeldt and Wilson seem to be shooting for. But instead of building on the success of that section, the song instead stubbornly reprises the the opening verse. It's like Wilson doesn't know where it wants to the song to go so he just throws his hands in the air.

"Lock Howl" is perhaps the biggest offender in this regard. I enjoy the brisk acoustic riff in the beginning, along with the sound of the bells and strings quietly chiming in the backround. From there it builds into some bizarre Egyptian sounding passage before -- maddeningly -- resetting once again to the initial riff. See the pattern?

"Happy," which sees Wilson attempt his best Fleet Foxes impersonation, is by far the album's shortest track. As such, it doesn't do enough to distinguish itself and gets lost in the album's acoustic ether. 

It all comes crashing down with "Ljudet Innan." In perhaps the most offbeat twist in an album full of offbeat twists, the track begins with falsetto vocals which have a minor soul/ R&B tinge. It completely clashes with the spirit of everything else on the album. Once that subsides, the track floats around in too much ambiance for far too long. It finally reaches a conclusion chock full of bluesy, 70s inspired guitar work that sounds like it could have been pulled from Opeth's Damnation/Deliverance era. It's nice to see they finally give a song a proper conclusion, but as the album closer it really isn't an adequate climax for an album that's all about buildups.

For the most part, the progressions on Storm Corrosion aren't particularly bad. It's a listenable album with many neat elements that potentially could have led to a great record. The main issue is that it tends to rely too much on drone elements to establish its sense of atmosphere. Neither artist is particularly experienced with making this technique work, and Storm Corrosion provides ample evidence that Wilson should have left it behind in his Metatonia/Voyage 34 days.

The title track is well executed, but far too often the rest of the songs don't go through their natural progressions, so there isn't much payoff in the end. At times I can't help but wonder: what exactly is the point?

Score: 77/100

Steven Wilson's star shines bright on Grace for Drowning

I'm a collector and I've always been misunderstood
I love the things that most people always overlook.

These two lines could sum up how Steven Wilson has built his career. Wilson has always had a peculiar outlook which has always colored not only his music but also his view on things in general. He's always gone outside the bounds of what people thought music should be, or could be, and in the process he's developed some of the most thoughtful and pertinent music in recent memory.

On his latest solo record, Grace for Drowning, he's tinkered the formula even more. His previous outing, Insurgentes, was a very eclectic record, hopping from one musical style to another. Conversely, Grace for Drowning builds up slowly and deliberately, enveloped in a fog of ambiance and mystery.

Wilson has never shied away from utilizing extended instrumental pieces in his music. In fact, he's released a pair of 100 percent instrumental albums with Porcupine Tree, which helps explain his decision to eschew lyrics on the first two tracks on Grace for Drowning.

After a brief uplifting intro, the album kicks in with Sectarian. The beginning sounds like the prelude to some epic battle, then tapers off after awhile but hits you with a sweet bassline. But the moment when it became obvious that this album wasn't going to play by the rules came during the heavy conclusion to the song. It was not at all what I was expecting and totally threw me for a loop.

From there we get into the real meat of the album. "Deform to Form a Star," easily one of the best songs of the year, opens with a series of absolutely beautiful piano chords and is accompanied by vocals to match.

The chorus feels dreamlike and mystic, as if a star is being formed before your very eyes. And there are a pair of majestic guitar solos to boot. The lyrics Wilson sings wrap around a haunting melody, focusing on the raw emotion of listlessness and despair. In the opening verse, he croons:

"No god here I'm sure,
this must be the cure
for all this carrion
and aimless drift"

In many ways, the sentiment delivered here is the overriding theme of Grace for Drowning; Wilson's words deal with picking up the pieces and attempting to deal with stagnation and regret. Though the event that prompted him to pick up the pieces is never made totally clear.

The thread continues onto the next track, "No Part of Me," which seems to be about a former lover that he realizes he never had true feelings for. Musically, the track is defined by a frantic and frenetic drum beat, but the music over top of that is hazy and and relaxed. It's a total contrast. But it's clear that the song is building up to something big, and then it hits in the second half when a meancing heavy riff breaks out, along with a guitar solo.

Then comes "Postcard," on which Wilson might as well be John Lennon lording over his piano. The track is still downbeat but has a vague sense of optimism that was largely absent on the two preceding tracks. It's like going through hell after a breakup, and then you finally hit that point when you realize that things might actually be okay, and that it isn't the end of the world as you know it.

The first disc concludes with "Remainder the Black Dog," a song title that sounds pretty creepy of its own accord. The eerie piano riff that plays through most of the song will nothing to dispel that notion. What impresses me about this track is how many different types of solos the band plays off that initial piano riff.

About halfway through you get a free form jazz solo played over a heavy riff, followed by a wall of riffing and some spastic solos, which then leads into a great bassline and acoustic guitar riff. There's a bit of minimalism, some ambiance, some messing around on the drumkit, and even a flute solo. It's enough to make even Yanni's head swim.

The second disc I don't feel like is as strong. My favorite song on that one is "Index," a very downbeat, minimalist piece with slight tinges of electronica. The theme of the song is about a compulsive collector who becomes obsessed with trying to organize and catagorize everything and it eventually puts a great mental strain upon him.  "Track One" is nice, but doesn't feel fully fleshed out, and "Belle De Jour" is an okay attempt at a New Age sounding intro piece. It's just that we have enough of those on the album already.

This brings us to "Raider II," the 23 minute behemoth and clearly the intended centerpiece of the album. The song's premise focuses on the elements that are damaging our planet and lives, to which Wilson assigns the term "Raider." The first 8-10 minutes are are great. Wilson's delivery grows increasingly intense on each verse, and the instrumentation is as taut as a drum. Later on it gets a bit indulgent. There's your fair share of progressive rock guitar noodling and several minutes of minimialist ambiance, but he's simply repeating himself.

If there is a major criticism of Grace For Drowning, it is that does perhaps feel a bit indulgent at times. While we do get to see more than a passing glimmer of the man's talent, I can't help but feel like this album is simply an indulgence for him. Much of the album feels like he's just dicking around; it's like he's trying to wade though layers of sonic soundscapes to see what sticks to the wall and what doesn't. Sometimes the album sounds somewhat unfocused, particularly on the second disc.

The 1-2-3 punch of "Deform to Form a Star," "No Part of Me" and "Postcard" is terrific, and I also really liked "Remainder the Black Dog" and "Index." It's a very good album, but Wilson seems to be more concerned in tinkering with various progressive landscapes and experimenting with different songwriting mechanics. It doesn't appear that he's aiming to make his next career defining LP here. That can wait until the next Porcupine Tree LP.

Score: 89/100