Album Review: Porcupine Tree's "Lightbulb Sun"
A Progressive Rock Masterpiece
Lightbulb Sun was once a rare collector's item that Porcupine Tree fans paid big money for on EBay and Amazon.com for. But now it has been re-released in America and other areas because of the cult-type success it has enjoyed and because new fans are just now discovering Porcupine Tree.
Lightbulb Sun Album Review
Many people who get into Porcupine Tree have the same reaction: they immediately want to hear the rest of their albums.
With the slightly-more mainstream success of the album Fear of a Blank Planet, many people have begun to comb through Porcupine Tree's album discography looking for a more complete representation of the band's sound.
Lightbulb Sun is a good compromise between Porcupine Tree's earlier more spacey, psychadelic sound and the newer, more alternative, heavier, progressive sound.
Porcupine Tree's Lightbulb Sun Tracks
The first track, Lightbulb Sun, is a solid song with a heavy, raw-sounding guitar riff that calls to mind Jimmy Page in Led Zeppelin's "In My Time of Dying."
The song is a workmanlike with some clever lyrics about the docile nature of modern society taking center stage.
Track two on Lightbulb Sun is called How is Your Life Today? and features some out-there Beatles-style lyrics about a man who is bored with his everyday life. It's a nice softer change of pace from Lightbulb Sun.
Four Chords that Made a Million is a fairly successful single from the album with a catchy chorus and a message about sellout bands and the music industry. Usually Porcupine Tree takes on much broader topics and is more abstract with their lyrics but they make this song work well nonetheless.
The next song, Shesmovedon, is a monster with some impressive pacing and a somber chorus that serves as a reminder to men who spend too much time dwelling on lost loves from the past.
The next track, number five on Lightbulb Sun, is easily one of its most ambitious. Last Chance to Evacuate Planet Earth Before it is Recycled starts out as a catchy, folksy rock love song and then drifts into unexplored territory as it syncs a speech by Heaven's Gate cult leader Marshall Applewhite to spacey synthesizers. It works surprisingly well as this is the track where Porcupine Tree's past meets its present. It just so happens that the present comes in the first part of the track, but it's a beautiful and thought-provoking any way you slice it.
The next song All of the Rest Will Flow is a cheerful love song and one of the band's most consistent at that.
Track 7, Hatesong, is another monster, like a darker B-side to Shesmovedon but perhaps even better and one of Lightbulb Sun's standout tracks.
Track 8 Where We Would Be is like a more somber version of All of the Rest Will Flow and just as good.
Track 9 is perhaps the album's centerpiece. Russia on Ice is about a drinking problem affecting a relationship and the grandiose nature of the song with its impressive use of pacing and a sinister guitar riff at the end is something that has to be heard by any progressive rock fan.
Finally, Feel So Low is the album's closer and it does so on the most sad and hopeless note imaginable.
Lightbulb Sun Album Final Thoughts
The sheer amount of emotion and rich, complex sounds you'll hear in this album is something unrivaled by modern rock albums.
Lightbulb Sun is a great album for new Porcupine Tree fans who want to go back in time and find out what the band was like as they were in the process of refining and adding to their signature spacey, curiosity-invoking sound of their earlier albums.
It's well worth the 15 bucks or so to purchase this album and it fits in nicely between their other new release and their old stuff. It's hard to rank this album because each Porcupine Tree album conveys different sets of emotions and sounds, but it's easily as good as just about everything they've done.
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