Fear Of A Blank Planet Houma LA

Fear Of A Blank Planet

Porcupine Tree

Atlantic, 2007

REVIEW BY: Vish Iyer

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 11/20/2007

Porcupine Tree’s latest Fear Of A Blank Planet tries to condense the essence of the entire record in the title itself, similar to what Public Enemy did when it came up with a nearly identical and brilliant title for a brilliant album 17 years ago.

But unlike the Public Enemy record, where the message was of substance, the message on PT’s record is so hackneyed that it comes across as blatantly silly and extremely stupid. And yet, the disc works.

The whole record revolves around the theme of teens going astray. And it is not just one or two songs, but every song on this record revolves around the same theme. The band’s espousal of this concept is displayed in such an in-your-face way that it is as strayed as a cheap instructional video where the actors try extra hard to deliver the message, but the acting is so poor that the result is embarrassing, if anything.

FOABP  is definitely the worst PT record lyrically. Take the word “pills” that’s beaten to death on this record: “How can I be sure I'm here? The pills that I've been taking confuse me” (“Fear Of A Blank Planet”); or “Only apathy from the pills in me, it's all in me” (“Anesthetize”); or “And I'm not really sure if the pills I've been taking are helping” (“Sentimental”). FOABP was created the same time frontman Steven Wilson was working on the second record by Blackfield, his side project, and maybe the trite “teenage-resentment” slant of Blackfield affected

Wilson’s songwriting for the PT record.