Steven Wilson’s newest album dropped on 14 March 2025 increasing his count to eight albums of solo work, plus all the work he’s created with Porcupine Tree, No-Man, Blackfield, Bass Communion, Storm Corrosion, Incredible Expanding, and Mindfuck, the bands he has led or joined outside of his solo work.
Like so much of Wilson’s catalog, this album is unique. While most commercial music is formulaic, Steven is anything but.
I wrote a page of notes while listening to the album for the first time and have tried to turn them from one-liners into prose for this post.
Here we go
Starting Track 1…
This is not the Porcupine Tree sound I expected. It’s not “space rock” or even “space prog”; it immediately presents like a new level of prog, layered with depth.
I find myself looking to space, like we are being called by the narrator to look skyward. Dream big. Think about the vastness of what is, what surrounds us.
Is this the new war protest theme?? The call to disarm to focus on freedom, flight, and humanity? While not directly addressing our reluctance to abandon our past in favor of our future, it sure feels that way.
The segues are like I’ve not felt since Rush’s Hemispheres or The Temples Of Syrinx. But more modern. Refined. Larger if you will. The marrow between the bones that is rich and delightful.
We are drawn to looking up while being mired in the traps of daily life.
The track has clean strings that sound crisp and clear. The sound is not over-engineered like so much prog. The perfect balance of capability and necessity
Dystopian post-apocalyptic storytelling with great bass lines and percussion sequences fills the room, and I’m buckled in for the ride
This prelude, Objects Outlive Us, leaves this listener wanting Act II.
And we get it in the title song, The Overview
We’re in space. Zooming out, seeing larger celestial bodies makes me feel smaller. Insignificant. Fragile.
My mind wanders… I don’t know the name of the president of Pakistan (do they have a president?), but they have nukes. How do I not know their name? There are people on this planet who are capable of killing millions of humans and altering the future of humanity in an afternoon, and I don’t know most of their names.
Steven’s story continues…in space. Reflections on Earth. An Earth we destroyed.
I am left ready to re-listen, dive deeper, and explore the message and lyrics further. For a first listen, color me impressed.
This is a profound album on all fronts and one that passes the basic test: does it sound great on a HiFi rig?
Indeed it does
And more than that, it’ll make you think
Wilson describes the album on his website:
My eighth solo album The Overview is a 42-minute, two-track conceptual epic where I take the listener on a Kubrickian journey into the darkness of outer space, seeing humanity for what it really is – tiny, insignificant, dwarfed by cosmic distances involving billions of years.
This one is worth a spin
Check out Steven Wilson – The Overview on your favorite music service
- Artist: Steven Wilson
- Album: The Overview
- Released: March 14, 2025
- Label: Fiction Records
- Reviewed on: May 28, 2025
- Reviewed by: Jason Straughan