Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

One of the most prolific musicians, producers, and remixers returns from the studio armed yet again with an album full of detail, and with an overview that is expansive, distinctive, and perhaps in the vein of the Progressive giants who weaved the music with such an intricacy that the idea of two songs that are bound by studious length and uniqueness of continual ambition.

Almost fearless, Steven Wilson’s eighth solo studio album is an expansive definition of the Progressive genre, two tracks that are inspired by the heavens, the overview effect that is experienced by astronauts looking back at our lonely planet from the darkness of space.

Objects Outlive Us and The Overview relish the forty-two minutes that make up the entirety of the album; a sense of the courageous and intrepid symphony of sound that modestly asserts the exceptional and confident ambition that is at the heart of the experiment from the musical mind of a man widely credited for giving the Progressive a new sense of purpose and epic beauty.

Whether we can imagine the Earth from such a vantage point, whether we envisage ourselves above the seemingly serene spinning globe and see magnificence in isolation, or the unease of the insignificant as it floats through space, is defined by our own humility; and regardless of the effect on our souls, what transpires in music is to be seen as grace in motion, a big personality of music that greets the heavens.

With an abundance of musical atmospheric additions in the studio from Craig Blundell on drums, Adam Holzman on keyboards, Randy McStine on guitars, as well as crafting of lyrical precision from XTC’s Andy Partridge, Steven Wilson once more continues to expand and explore the genre and its effects on the influnce of storytelling; and as the pieces within the two tracks, the individualism of movements such as No Monkey’s Paw, The Buddha of The Modern Age, Cosmic Sons Of Toil, Heat Death Of The Universe, Borrowed Atoms, the assured nature of A Beautiful Infinity 1 and 2, and the crucial, possible comforting ending of Permanence combine, all that is required by the listener is the ability to keep an open mind, to keep themselves grounded as they soar to the stars.

An absolute experience of subtly and the infinite, Steven Wilson’s The Overview is nothing short of impressive.

Ian D. Hall