Album Review

Steven Wilson – Insurgentes

• 9th Mar 2009

I first gave this CD a listen in my car on a short drive – big mistake. I had never heard any of Steve Wilson’s music before so didn’t really know what to expect. Needless to say, ‘Insurgentes’ took me by surprise. Each ‘track’ (in my opinion, the album is essentially ten long tracks) is then split into numerous shorter tracks, so when my car stereo was telling me that I was flying through tracks more often than I passed lampposts, I started to get a bit suspicious.

Upon playing the record in the comfort of my lamppost free home, iTunes tells me that there are 99 tracks on this record. An impressive feat, but in my eyes this excessive division of music is needless and whether for the ‘sake of the art’ or not, it becomes an irritating aspect of ‘Insurgentes’. It has to be said however, I am not the most patient person in the world when it comes to music, so perhaps if I had the patience to sit and listen to and top appreciate each micro-track in its own right then maybe I could look at the album differently. Realistically however, that is not going to happen.

Positive aspects of this record are that it is truly unique, highly creative and offers the listener something new each time. Also, it is of a rare breed in that it was written with the aim of being listened to as an entire piece; not disposable singles. Just as well I suppose, as nobody would buy 24 seconds of a beautiful melody cruelly twisted with dark, industrials drones (Track 18).

Definitely one for music fans more than music consumers, Steve Wilson’s ‘Insurgentes’ is a spectacularly brave step back from the generic pop music that saturates the airwaves these days which transports the listener into a world where unnerving, disturbing sounds clash with sinister harmonious melodies resulting in truly different kind of album.