Too often, an EP released after a successful album will contain nothing more than throwaway tracks that didn’t make the cut the first time around. Not so with Porcupine Tree’s “Nil Recurring.” The four tracks presented here are as good, if not better, than anything on the hugely successful “Fear Of A Blank Planet.”
After “Black Planet” was completed, leader Steven Wilson was left with a wealth of material that was just too good to relegate to B-side status. The only discernable difference with the new material is the greater use of Richard Barbieri’s keyboards. The guitar is still front and center, but Barbieri adds a new dimension of depth and succeeds in illuminating the dark corners between metal and melody.
The combination of Wilson’s edgy six-string attack and Barbieri’s synth patches makes for a head-splitting opening track. Once again, King Crimson’s Robert Fripp returns to provide his atmospheric and slightly slanted guitar work, and his solo is simply frightening in its intensity. The band lays into a groove that many other bands would simply trample to death, but in the hands of Porcupine Tree it all gels to a perfect fanfare.
“Normal” is up next and alternates a rapid-fire acoustic guitar riff with a Middle Eastern tint to achieve the most satisfying track on the CD. Both of the remaining songs, “Cheating The Polygraph” and “What Happens Now?” are among the strongest of Wilson’s latter-day compositions. With these two tracks, it appears that he’s finally found a way to combine the early progressive side of the band and the more aggressive, metallic side.
While there may be only four songs on this EP, each one clocks in at more than six minutes, so it feels like a full album’s worth of material. No doubt there’s a “complete” version of “Blank Planet” waiting in the wings that will combine the original album plus the “Nil Recurring” tracks (especially if the band is awarded with the Best Surround Sound Grammy for which it’s been nominated). In the end, the only complaint about the music on “Nil Recurring” is obvious: there just isn’t enough.
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