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An empty train station, the whistle of the train, a departure, memories of her that already seem distant, a landscape that transforms from metallic outskirts to silent countryside.
It's yet another physical-mental journey, one of the many we all have to make sooner or later, where melancholy reigns and where, despite everything, we enjoy letting ourselves go.
Steven Wilson is now a guarantee when it comes to melancholy made into music and words, and he proves it even in this mid-career work, where each track turns out to be a small journey inside one's brain synapses, without seeking answers to one's doubts, discomforts, or excitements, managing to make even the lucky listener undergo the same inner journey, like a modern-day Virgil with his Dante of the moment..
In "In Absentia," it almost no longer makes sense to talk about prog or metal or psychedelia or electronics, as there are now so many sonic layers that make up each track that Wilson masters at his pleasure, creating a kind of anticipation around the corners of every single song.
A perfect example is "Trains," a piece of infinite beauty and a masterpiece not just of an album but of an entire career, and the perfect response against all potential detractors of Porcupine Tree, often previously accused of being epigones of Pink Floyd and owing much, if not everything, to Gilmour's band. Here (as in other gems like "Heartattack In A Lay By" or "Prodigal"), it is clear that the psychedelic component has now been assimilated, turned inside out, and spit out in a completely personal form, making the group capable, after the debut albums, of being both profound and catchy, almost "pop" at certain moments.
A pleasure, therefore, for the mind, but also for the technique and the melody: the achievement of such a complexity of intents for a band now free to fly...
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