Released: 2021

Genres: Art Pop, Progressive Pop, Electronic

The Musiquarium’s THE FUTURE BITES Review Score: 6.5 out of 10

After experimenting with the occasional pop song throughout his career, like on the Porcupine Tree tracks Piano Lessons and Lazarus, as well as solo songs like Postcard, Hand Cannot Erase and on most of his last album, To the Bone, Steven Wilson has finally dedicated an entire album to the pop sphere, though layers of irony and satire follow.

UNSELF is an intro that doesn’t really do anything other than exist, before leading into SELF, which prominently uses backing vocals (a major point of criticism I have with the album). The production on KING GHOST is quite stunning, but is mostly held back by Wilson’s whiney falsetto. 12 THINGS I FORGOT is a fairly flaccid track, but at least Wilson’s vocals aren’t buried by the backing vocals here.

EMINENT SLEAZE and MAN OF THE PEOPLE are both guilty of sounding like Pink Floyd rip-offs (Have a Cigar and Welcome to the Machine, respectively — both from Wish You Were Here) and seeing as Pink Floyd is probably Steven Wilson’s favourite band, there is no way he wasn’t aware of such an imitation. PERSONAL SHOPPER is probably the best song here, but is ruined by the aforementioned backing vocals and could also do without the spoken word Elton John section.

THE FUTURE BITES was delayed by a year due to the COVID pandemic, and most songs had already been released as singles by the time the album dropped, so the way I feel about this album wasn’t surprising, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t disappointed all the same. There is some fantastic production here, some catchy hooks and it’s good to see Wilson go out of his comfort zone, but I feel like this album could have been much more, but instead became of a victim of its own pop satire, much like with Arcade Fire and their 2017 album, Everything Now.

The combined discographies of Porcupine Tree and Steven Wilson make up one of the best album runs of the past 30 years, but for all it does right, THE FUTURE BITES is still his weakest solo album yet.

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

Back to the 2021 Album Guide or the Steven Wilson Reviews page.