Steven Wilson
The Future Bites

Initially scheduled for June 2020, it was postponed to January 2021 due to the difficulties related to promotion, but in the end, the sixth album by the maestro Steven Wilson was released amidst praise and criticism; it was the first valid reason to look forward to 2021, a year that is still turning out a tad sad and a reflection of an uncertain future but is nonetheless gifting us with great music.

Wilson once again chooses a path that has little to do with the prog-rock of the good old days. He already tried with "To the Bone," boldly venturing into more accessible territories, yet still marked by that melodic sophistication linked to a certain prog, a peculiar pop-prog that looked at certain 80s productions with a very updated approach. With the same courage and even less fear of being discredited by certain purists, Steven ups the ante; "The Future Bites" is even more pop, almost immersed, albeit with one foot out, in pure pop, the most maligned and slick kind, more electronic, timidly sugary, and deliberately artificial, the one most sadly subjected to criticism, often irrespective of its merits (much of the 80s stuff is there to prove it); this time, Wilson found it difficult to compose with traditional instrumentation, hence the choice to rely predominantly on more electronic instrumentation.

However, the material is very varied, no two tracks are the same and it draws from the 70s up to the 2000s, also touching on experiences with Porcupine Tree, which according to his latest statements “could come back at any moment” and that in any case, he has never disdained nor ceased to reference in his solo creations. And in any case, the attention to arrangements and details is never lacking; it surely is not the plastic and utterly flat chart pop that appeals to youngsters, Wilson fortunately stays well away from such abominations; he has the proper class to do so, even in the most commercial of episodes he inserts that something that makes it challenging, that makes it sound strange and introverted, which makes it not exactly “for everyone”; in essence, Steven Wilson is pop but remains always and anyway Steven Wilson. Many did not see it that way, criticisms have been plenty, the album has quite a low average on Progarchives and Rate Your Music; for many, it was really a slip into the commercial and bad taste.

Moving into the merits, though, we can better dissect Wilson's flair. Starting from the most outrageously pop track, “Self”, where Steven reunites with his old adventure companion Richard Barbieri; it’s an unapologetic synth-pop with a disco rhythm, drawing from both the 80s and 70s, with its frivolous little choirs; it may be a glaring commercial stunt, but that synthesizer sounds distorted and hallucinatory, spewing out acid splashes in all directions, what might seem like just a simple tribute to the 80s is actually a psychedelic exhibition. Also, the subsequent "King Ghost" is in some way appealing to the mainstream but with absolute reservation; it has a somewhat familiar r’n’b beat, but it also has minimalist and sophisticated sounds that Wilson colors with some vocal peaks, it has that almost trip-hop atmosphere certainly not made to be digested by any listener of RTL 102.5. “Man of the People” further intensifies all of this; the sounds and vocal peaks become even thinner; here we are even farther from pop and ever closer to a particular trip-hop, it is essentially an outlier in the entirety.

The most peculiar and hermetic pop exhibition, however, is “Eminent Sleaze”: Nick Beggs' Stick and scarcely audible percussion create a dark and mysterious atmosphere, which is, however, illuminated by string inserts and soul choirs vaguely drawn from a certain 70s disco, the guitars bounce in place as does the entire rhythmic framework; like a repressed urge to dance, as if Wilson wanted to unleash his desire to go wild, yet with great willpower managing to contain the instinct; it’s a too particular track, you can’t even describe it accurately, it’s a kind of funk not very lively, a sort of unexploded disco music, it evokes certain sounds but never translates into a dance floor number; it’s a dark funk that can’t even be danced to, you might perhaps hop on the spot; we might perhaps define it as “dark-lounge”, it seems more like a pre-evening track, for a dim, somewhat subdued locale that hopes to come alive within an hour or so; anyway, I think it takes a certain genius to compose a track like this, but also a certain courage to despise it.

Becoming danceable and club-like is actually not too much of a problem for Wilson; "Personal Shopper" slips effortlessly into sounds close to a certain 90s dance, the obsessive and repetitive synths are more or less those, the 9-minute duration then really makes it resemble a sort of extended mix for clubs, where heavy parts are dragged on but also allow for relaxed and celestial breaks… yet in all this, Wilson remembers once again to be a classy musician with a certain elegance; he doesn’t want the track to be a sterile “tunz-tunz” and then retrieves psychedelic effects and ambient trips that characterized the early period with Porcupine Tree. Steven has practically created a 90s dance track that sweeps away any dance track of that era; as further proof of his relevance in the music scene, he even allowed himself the luxury of hosting Elton John in the role of the advertising speaker, heard during the slower part while presenting a series of more or less improbable products.

"Follower” is instead the track that sounds more 2000s, except for a few synth hits very 80s, it features energetic electronics but with dark and somewhat industrial sounds, it has a very indie, alternative attitude, roughly in the style of Planet Funk.

Nevertheless, the deepest and least catchy track is “Count of Unease”, which is essentially the 80s pop-prog legacy of the previous album; it has a dilated and suffered atmosphere, with elongated and amplified keyboard chords, scarcely audible percussion, and an intensity that grows slowly, it’s the typical track of an 80s new wave group deciding to put aside certain sugary sounds for a moment to dive into a sophisticated atmosphere; the late 80s Tears For Fears reappear as well as Talk Talk (the track roughly resembles "April 5th"). An unplanned gem, the pre-Covid tracklist was supposed to close with “Anyone But Me”, a good pop song that, however, couldn’t provide a grand finale, but in a way “not all evil comes to harm” the postponement of release was almost providential, allowing Wilson to replace it with this little gem seemingly made to show that Steven still has the right inspiration to compose something sophisticated and intimate.

If one instead wants to find something less electronic and artificial, they can rely on “12 Things I Forgot”, another track that maintains a certain link with the previous album but also with the 1999-2000 Porcupine Tree era, a sort of completely uncommitted brit-pop, a guitar that flows lightly and regularly without overdoing it, and a fresh and bright melody. Also far from electronic is the intro "Unself", just a few soft acoustic strums and some piano notes to introduce the album, an intro that deserved to be deepened and expanded; in reality, Wilson did so (along with other tracks) but reserved it for the deluxe edition.

Moral of the story: at this historical moment, Wilson is a pop composer, undoubtedly by vocation, but some wouldn’t want to rule out that there might be an ulterior motive to bring a little more bread home, now that he is a married man with family… Anyway, he has a great explosive chaos in mind, first a tour rescheduled for the end of the year (after the cancellation of the 2020 one) and then again canceled due to the uncertain evolution of the pandemic, then the declared intention to immediately get to work with the desire to release two new albums in 2022 and 2023.

“The Future Bites” is classic to make purists grimace, those for whom their mighty artists should never get flustered, never try to do anything more easy; let’s say it’s a blasphemous record proud to be one. I tried to find a reason to criticize it but from my analysis I feel Wilson hasn’t done anything wrong, he’s done everything well with the usual mastery. It’s precisely a record to listen to without prejudice.