Released: 2015

Genres: Progressive Rock, Alternative Rock, Art Rock

The Musiquarium’s Hand. Cannot. Erase Review Score: 9 out of 10

Continuing on from the progressive rock direction of The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories), while adding some pop-influenced element, Hand. Cannot. Erase. is a concept album about the true story of a lonely woman who died in her apartment and went undiscovered for two years.

An intro track leads into the 10 minute-long, 3 Years Older, which showcases an eighties Rush-style sound. The title track is one of Wilson’s best pop songs, along along the lines of earlier examples like Postcard or the Porcupine Tree piano ballad, Lazarus. Perfect Life features a spoken word segment and percussion that wouldn’t feel out of place in a hip-hop song. The 9 minute-long Routine is a emotionally-charged ballad, with vocals from Israeli singer, Ninet Tayeb.

The keyboard-heavy Home Invasion has some of the album’s best instrumental moments. Regret #9 is an instrumental that sounds a bit like what Genesis could have sounded like in the eighties, had Phil Collins never led them into the pop charts. Transience is a delicate, finger-picked acoustic track. The 13 minute epic Ancestral is the centrepiece of the album, which features more vocals from Ninet Tayeb and has the typical progressive virtuosic mastery that Wilson has been associated with for about two decades now. Happy Returns is another one of the more pop-centric songs here.

Hand. Cannot. Erase. is one of Steven Wilson’s best works in his entire discography (solo or Porcupine Tree), with a well-executed concept and a successful blend of modern sensibilities and late seventies progressive rock influences.

For credit breakdowns and historic release details, view Steven Wilson on Discogs.

Back to the 2015 Album Guide or the Steven Wilson Reviews page.

Written by Brett Nippard