Approaching a new Steven Wilson release is an interesting experience for me. I greatly respect his work, but I often feel like an outsider because I wouldn’t rank him as one of my “favorite” artists, and I know there are plenty of diehard fans out there. I received plenty of backlash on my Porcupine Tree review last year, and I may for my review for The Harmony Codex, as well, though probably for different reasons. As always, I go with my gut. The album releases on September 29th.
Steven Wilson, in my personal estimation, is one of the reasons we still talk about progressive music to this day. I don’t think he completely saved it, but he certainly bore a large portion of the burden. His work with his various bands and projects is always good, never awful. However, it can definitely hit differently depending on what music you like. As I am fond of saying, if an artist can make an album outside of your personal preferences or even an album you dislike, that is a true artist indeed. Mike Oldfield is that way for me, and I respect him all the more for it.
The Harmony Codex is a different album for Steven, but also familiar. Some of the same names appear in the lineup: Steven Wilson on vocals, guitars, keyboards, sampler, bass, percussion, and programming; Ninet Tayeb on lead and backing vocals; Craig Blundell and Sam Fogarino on drums; and Adam Holzman and Jack Dangers on keyboards. You’ll also hear Rotem on spoken word. You can tell, I think, that Steven handles much of this himself, outside of the drumming, and so the album does feel cohesive and focused in that way.
If you like Steven Wilson’s progressive rock sound, this album is not that, but it contains certain elements of it. If you like his pop or electronic side, there is plenty of that here, too, but it isn’t as prominent as on the last couple records, I’d say. No, this album is something different; I might even say there is an industrial style at play here. You will also hear quite a bit of guitar on various tracks, which hasn’t been the case for his solo outings since Hand.Cannot.Erase. In that way, it feels like he is backtracking on his infamous statements about guitar and how he just wasn’t interested in composing music with it anymore—this album clearly shows him reentering that fray. There are many electronic beats and rhythms throughout, but you will also hear real drums—played extremely well, I might add. For me, the most potent moments of the album are when the pop, prog rock, and electronic elements all collide, and that is really what this album is all about, mostly.
The Harmony Codex is a balanced record because of that, and in hyper-analyzing it, we can possibly forget that it is simply a beautiful album, too. Steven sings really well on this album, leaning into a gracious and melodic style. Ninet’s vocals are terrific as always, and I really like the spoken word portions she offers on a couple tracks. The two of them together always produce great results, so I hope they work together more in the future.
But, here’s the thing, if you are here looking for the technical, progressive rock side of things, and that’s all you enjoy, you won’t find a new Raven here. But his solo works were never about that, now were they? Even on Raven, the best songs weren’t the prog rock ones. If you appreciate, like I do, his work more when he brings a menagerie of ideas and tones and sounds together into one interesting album—if you can appreciate ambience, poetry, and dreamy ideas—-then you will find something good here. And some of the best moments are when he combines contrasting ideas at different tempos into something that somehow works.
Mentally, I separate the album into the first four tracks, and then the remaining six. The first four tracks include three of the four singles. I do really like the opener “Inclination” with its funky rhythm and great vocals from Steven; I feel like he is more melodic than usual. “What Life Brings” is a nice and short rock ballad; it’s a pretty song and I like the lyrics, but it doesn’t do much for me. The same could be said for “Economies of Scale”, an interesting and artistic piece that purposefully never finds a foothold rhythm, even though it is a little catchy at times. I don’t feel that song makes full sense without “Impossible Tightrope”, which I see as a continuation of it. This ten-minute piece has some truly cool moments on it with funky brass sections and interesting beats. I do feel like it is a couple minutes too long, but that’s just me, though I will say that I really like the keys on the second half.
Tracks 5-10 flow so well together and I’m finding myself taken by them. “Rock Bottom” is just the beginning with its Steven and Ninet duet; it’s a beautiful song with a great chorus that is possibly not as a strong as some of their past collaborations, but it has still grabbed me for some reason. It leads into “Beautiful Scarecrow”, a song with a strange, marching industrial rhythm that emerges in the second half after a spacey, dream portion in the first few minutes. It’s a weird song, but I’ve taken to it.
The last six tracks on this album are actually pretty sparse on lyrics, and that especially begins with the title track. I love this piece. It reminds me of taking all of Steven Wilson’s work throughout all of his projects and filtering it into a rhythmic ambient track that emotes and exudes nostalgia and that “Steven Wilson sound”. It feels like I’ve heard it before, but in a different form. It reminds me of his Tangerine Dream version of “King Ghost”; the song is in there, but hovers and harmonizes into something more abstract and conceptual, and then there is Rotem’s excellent spoken word to put the icing on the cake.
The next two tracks go together. “Time is Running Out” starts out like a ballad with keys and mist, and Steven again sounds great here and so does his guitar work. The song turns into an electronic piece with a weird vocal effect that sounds, shall I say, off putting at first, but I’ve come to grasp it. The song leads into “Actual Brutal Facts”, a strange piece that has become a favorite. It again has a marching, percussive sound to it with explicit industrial overtones and fills, for lack of a better word, that sound rather 90s to me. The guitar work is off kilter and weird, too, and the vocals are halfway between singing and just speaking, and I’m not sure if it’s Steven with a bass vocal filter or if it’s a guest. But it all works, and I really like it.
The closer “Staircase” is my favorite song on the album, though. All of the ideas and sounds come together into nine-minute track with great vocals, fantastic drums, biting lyrics, terrific bass lines, and especially memorable guitar work that is less a solo and more of a harmony. The song has an addictive quality to it, far from the prog rock vibes or the pop aspirations. No, this is something that feels laid back, yet engaging; calculated, but funky and fun, too. I love the keys that filter in near the end, too, both the synth and the piano, and Rotem closes the album with more spoken word that seems to have even deeper effect in the swirling, musing mist of synth that haunts the last couple minutes. What a great ending!
Steven Wilson has another good album here. The Harmony Codex is not “next level” or some work of genius, but I think we need to stop applying hype to every single release he brings. This is a beautiful album that I rather enjoy, and I think if that is your only expectation, then you will, too. For me, this album is more natural and more artistic than last year’s Porcupine Tree release—this is representative of who Steven is as an artist now, and I think we just need to enjoy that.
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The PROG Mind 
Super review. Thanks for your elaborate comments. You know your shit and you know how to come up with a few points of view I hadn’t found myself, without being self-indulgent or obtrusive. Cheers!
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Thanks for the fair and balanced review. I’m enjoying the album and agree that the high points are exactly when all his styles come together. This album feels cinematic and I do expect him to get into film scores further down the the line. Sonic quality is brilliant, even though I don’t have an ATMOS set-up. I think some fans expected the next Dark Side of the Moon from him at some stage, but he has morphed into a techno/prog/ambient artist who explores new ground with each release – explaining why his appeal may reduce to the mainstream but grow deeper with the faithful.
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