This is one lousy album. You have exactly one good song, the opener called "Blackest Eyes", and the rest is just complete rubbish. Why are so many people telling me Porcupine Tree is some kind of modern progressive rock band influenced by bands such as King Crimson and Rush? Are you kidding me?

This is just typical heavy metal that tries to trick you into thinking it's more intelligent than it really is. The lyrics are good, but the musical ideas are very uninteresting and just terrible most of the time, with one ordinary and unmemorable heavy metal riff leading straight into above average vocal melodies. That's what the entire album feels like to me.

The riff in the beginning of "Wedding Nails" is stolen directly from Deep Purple's "Rat Bat Blue". The drumming is run of the mill. This is the kind of music you'd hear at a haunted house for kids or something. You can't take the music seriously, and hopefully none of you reading this review ARE taking Porcupine Tree seriously.

Please, don't put this stuff on the same level as King Crimson, Gentle Giant, or Yes.

3 1/2

I was always more a fan of the band's slower, spacious textures, as opposed to their equally indulged hard rock side. The former seems to be able to breathe and penetrate the listener while the latter just seemed to provide relative clunky, plodding contrast. Even so, PT sound committed to putting out "full" albums that feel like worthwhile investments for fans; even when songwriting becomes predictable, production breadth never misses sight of treating users to whole experiences.

Man, I kinda got this album on a whim, and boy am I glad I did. From the opening riff to the powerful, moving closer, there is not a dull moment. The heavier stuff reminds me a little of Opeth and Dream Theater...maybe a little Tool in there even though I don't really listen to them. There are some beautiful haunting/atmospheric passages too, which add a great deal of dimension to the album. I'm not familiar with Porcupine Tree's back catalog, but from what I gather, this might be the most accessible album of theirs at the time of its release. I definitely recommend it to people who like good rock and progressive music.

At the time this was released (2002), my general impression of In Absentia was that it was pretty heavy, but not overwhelmingly so. What I like the most about this album (and band for that matter) is the emotional sophistication of the music - in combination with their solid musicianship it makes for a very rich listening experience.

Musically, the band is very tight and the trademark Porcupine Tree blend of haunting and sad minor chords, fine vocals, atmospheric synthesizer parts and heaviness works very well. I especially liked the fact that they had moved on from the slightly lighter and "poppier" sound of Lightbulb Sun (2000) - In Absentia is a very dark album overall. Although all of the tracks are very enjoyable, my favorite is the sad piece entitled Heart Attack in a Layby.

With respect to instrumentation, I enjoy the synthesizer textures that Richard uses - they are mainly used to simulate strings and are used as a sustained backdrop rather than a melody line. The mellotron (samples?) are also quite nice. Steve's guitar textures/timbres include delicate acoustic sections, clean tones on an electric, and a thunderous, "crunchy" tone on the electric. Overall, the contrast of the light and the heavy is quite nice and was a hallmark of the best progressive rock from the 1970s. It is also worth noting that In Absentia features new drummer Gavin Harrison for the first time on a PT studio album - I find his overall technical approach to be very similar to the previous drummer (that is a good thing by the way).

This is a great album by a very interesting post-progressive band that continues to create exciting music. For those folks interested in the bands earlier, more ambient works, excellent examples include The Sky Moves Sideways (1995) and Signify (1996).

The majority of PT fans believe this is their best album to date and are in love with it. But I do believe it is over hyped. The album does not seem to flow as well together as the rest of their albums...and at times it seems all over the place. Here is a track by track detail:

1. Blackest Eyes - Its a really good opener...I like the pause toward the end of the song and the chorus is very catchy.
2. Trains - A spectacular song and one of PT's most beautiful pieces to date, a song that everybody should really like.
3. Lips Of Ashes - Amazing display of vocal harmonics....sit down and just listen to this song.
4. The Sound Of Muzak - Once again another song with a very catchy chorus.
5. Gravity Eyelids - Hard to describe this song or my liking for it. A lot of PT fans love this song, but I don't get too excited when listening to it. It starts off quiet and slow, then has a hard riff section then back to the slow part.
6. Wedding Nails - A heavy instrumental, and a great one.
7. Prodigal - The best song on the album in my opinion. It is perfectly scripted.....great song!
8. .3 - This song is up there with Prodigal, very nice and soft song.
9. The Creator Has A Mastertape - Very different from anything PT has done, very fast and upbeat.
10. Heartattack In A Layby - Another amazing display of vocal harmonics, this song will blow you away.
11. Strip The Soul - Great song, you can see where PT is heading with their future albums based on this song. It is heavy.
12. Collapse the Light Into Earth - Very slow/mellow song with piano and vocals....I think it drags a bit much.

Great album, but like I said the music is sorta all over the place. I am not sure if it was recorded at different times which could indicate the different sound through out the album. Or if the introduction of Gavin Harrison caused some late decisions to change some songs up (as the album was written before Gavin came to record the album).

Either way it is a fantastic album by PT, I don't consider it their best...I see it more as an experimental album for the band themselves, as they were trying to find the next direction (that was only imminent) that they would go in. But every PT fan should get this album as it does have several classic PT songs and it is an important phase in Porcupine Tree's history.

PS: This album also produced a few really good B sides such as "Drown With Me", "Futile" and "Chloroform".