Porcupine Tree
Signify

Today you feel like exaggerating.

You love to live, you want to live intensely, and tonight you've decided to not care about your life, perhaps to love it even more. You leave the house, but not before taking the car keys and the CD you want to put in the player. You grab “Signify” by Porcupine Tree, maybe because it's the last album you bought and you still have to wear it out, or maybe because its atmospheres and energy are suited for a “trip” in the car. You open the door, get in, close the door. Insert the CD. And start the engine. The last remnants of sunlight disappear behind the horizon as you hit the road with the intro of Signify in the background. You think of nothing more, but chasing the deserted road in the darkness of an overly silent countryside.

The title-track hasn't been kind to your driver sensitivity. So much so that you've gone mad, and under the notes of progressive music with almost ambient atmospheres, you've decided to hit fifth gear comfortably reaching 130. Previously, you would have realized the road was too narrow, but now everything seems so harmonious to you, including the speed. Meanwhile, you manage to appreciate the fine craftsmanship of a prog that is never self-celebratory, but aimed at exalting the composition itself. Sublime. The sleep of no dreaming is a ballad that takes its cue from a beautiful organ phrase and allows you to slow down slightly. And in the darkening landscape, some lampposts randomly cast light into your eyes. “Screw everyone!”, you think. You've always liked solitude, but tonight it has a special taste. Music can make your moments divine, even the most mundane. And behind the subtle play of sounds, the sacred chant of “pagan” appears like a Gregorian chant echoing in the distance, chilling your blood and constricting your veins.

When “waiting” comes, you've already forgotten about everyday life, the stupidity of the routine, and the hypocritical society surrounding you. It seems like your life has always unfolded in that single car journey. The harmonies are dreamy, the rhythmic acoustic guitar accompanies an inspired vocal. Then suddenly, Wilson's electric guitar lights up with a sinuous solo that you accompany by taking the curves with harmony and elegance. “Barbieri, the ex-keyboardist of Japan, has created a killer sound on this CD,” you think. But when the second guitar solo starts, with an angry wah, you can't help but use one of the few straightaways to unleash the madness of your adrenaline. The images outside the windows become even more elusive. “Sever tomorrow,” Wilson suggests in the next song. You need to stop. You find a spot that smells of dung dipped in grass. Turn off the car, its lights, and listen to the perfection of this song (“sever”), sweet yet decisive in its catchiness. And with “idiot prayer,” you set off again. An ambient intro of synthesizers makes you fly. On the left, a small Romanesque church shrouded in black greets you, and for a moment you feel you're not alone. But it's the suggestion of the moment, because anything elevated above the ground seems to you to have come to life. In the song, a rhythm almost techno with Arabian guitar embellishments erupts. You need to accelerate. The road is getting narrower, more elusive, and when you spot the ditch, you interpret it as a diminished variation of the minor scale. And you take it at full speed. The car bounces, and the immediately following curve is really impossible to take because you've been thrown off the ground. You go off-road and crash after taking a romantic descent into the ravine. “Oh well, never mind, I'll stay here and listen until the music ends…”

“Every home is wired” is an intense acoustic ballad, but now the sound comes to you from afar. “The CD player must have taken a bad hit.” You raise your eyes to the mirror and notice you are a mask of blood. “I'll call for help, but only when the record ends, also because I feel no pain, so there's no reason to worry.” You manage with difficulty to raise the volume, but the feeling of distance doesn't change. Not even the progressive steps in the confused drum n’ bass of “intermediat jesus” wake you from such lethargy. And when the ethereal sound mass of “light mass prayers” arrives, a soft almost new age carpet, you feel yourself being carried out of the car. You’re looking at your car from the outside. “It’s slightly destroyed.” And you burst out laughing looking at it, but only briefly, because your lungs hurt, and you struggle to breathe. “Why not stop breathing? I’ve been continuously breathing for 21 years in every moment of my life, a little break won't harm me for sure.” Now you feel better. From the beginning of the journey, you’ve felt better, so you won’t call for help, not now. Now there's “Dark matter,” whose sound no longer comes from the player but from everywhere. And that 7/4 doesn’t bother you either; it, in fact, flows smoothly and lightly like it were a 4/4. It is when a musician doesn't make you feel all the prowess of his music that you can easily enjoy the notes he lavishes upon you. Just before “dark matter” ends, the tree dilates and becomes a river. The stars begin to whirl and draw trails in the darkness. The last guitar solo of the album is moving away from your ears. It has a vaguely Gilmourian flavor, which certainly doesn’t hurt. You notice that sight has faded and hearing only remains to listen to the last notes of Signify. “After it ends, I’ll have a good sleep.” And the music ends.

Post Scriptum: All this is the product of pure imagination. I would never do such things with a car, and I strongly advise everyone against crashing and racing with a car. However, in this pseudo-review, without hypocrisies and censorships, I also want to make people reflect on why many young people eagerly seek danger and extreme thrill, the mad act, to derive enjoyment from life and make the most of their senses, even through the use of drugs.