Every year there’s one album that comes along and makes me just stand up and declare this as the record of the year. 2009 has been a weird year in that ideal has changed about three times for me so far: firstly came Mastodon’s "Crack the Skye" then "Lungs" by Florence And The Machine and now "The Incident" by Porcupine Tree.

I have to admit I’ve been a BIG fan of Porcupine Tree since hearing ‘Shallow’ off "Deadwing" and then followed that up with ‘Fear Of A Blank Planet’ (the title track being my favourite song by the band) and I then worked backwards through all of their material to the first album.

As my journey through the works of Steven Wilson and the band progressed I also noticed how the musical maturity has progressed with every record given that the band was created as a ‘fictional’ side project back in the late eighties with a series of cassettes (one being called "Tarquin’s Seaweed Farm" which eventually had tracks that showed up on "On the Sunday Of Life" and "Up The Downstair.")

"The Incident" according to Steven began when he was traveling and noticing a police sign as he realized that

What followed is the first disc, a 55 min opus which to me combines elements from "In Absentia", "Fear Of A Blank Planet", Opeth (who Mr Wilson has produced 3 times) and darker Nine Inch Nails, it also strikes me how there’s going to be slight interpretations of the concept of "Incident." Steven has noted in a video interview that everyone seems to have different types of incidents in their life (at the most five), one in particular that stands out to him was when he decided to follow his musical career and quit what was a lucrative job in the computing industry to follow the dream.

"The Incident" follows that mindset to me as a person’s life starts and, during one particular moment of thinking (possibly stuck in traffic during an incident chronicled in the title track) the person remembers his life so far as simply as he can (since Occam’s Razor is the simplest and most correct explanation.) He remembers (and keep in mind this is my interpretation) how he grew up, and how his parents wanted him to be ('The Blind House', 'Great Expectations'), he then decides to disconnect from the pressure of it all ('Kneel' and 'Discomfort', 'Drawing The Line'), he then suddenly shifts into an incident of a car being destroyed by a family yet it’s never made too clear who that is, my take could be an ex girlfriend. ('Your Unpleasant Family')

Halfway through and by the time you hear 'Part IX (Time Flies)' he chronicles how his life has been and then the mood shifts to the darker tone as we deal with grief/death from 'Degree Zero Of Liberty' to 'I drive The Hearse'.

Disc II is more independent recordings that stem away from the concept however this disk seems to suffer from the case of out take syndrome, 'Black Dahlia' and 'Remember My Lover' are brilliant but I don’t get the connection I feel with 'Flicker' and 'Bonnie The Cat' which is the only reason this did not get 10's across the voard.
Porcupine Tree though on both discs show how fluid of a band they have become, standout points are during the instrumental pieces in 'The Incident' , 'Drawing The Line' and the epic within the epic of 'Time Flies' (which to me has probably the best guitar solo since 'Psycho' by System Of A Down.)

Gavin Harrison shows why he’s one of the best drummers in the business throughout this album, the guitars of Steven and bass of Colin Edwin are tight as hell and Steven shows once again he can tell a story and make it vividly appear in your mind. It’s been many journalists’ favourite record (from the few I talk to on Twitter) of 2009, add me to that list.

If Porcupine Tree do not gain massive acclaim with this album then the music world needs to be examined very quickly and very thoroughly.