Steven Wilson on the 'Only Thing' Prog Artists Have in Common

Fashionable prog rock/steel legend Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree, Opeth) is at the moment doing press for his just lately launched eight studio LP, The Overview, and in a latest chat with on-line music journal/YouTube channel Innerviews, he defined what he sees because the “solely factor” progressive rock artists have in frequent.

What Wilson Stated

In the course of the interview (posted to YouTube on March 1), host Anil Prasad requested Wilson about his resolution to return to progressive rock with The Overview (after venturing into artwork rock and electronica on its instant predecessors). Included in that return is the truth that The Overview consists of simply two roughly 20-minute tracks (“Objects Outlive Us” and “The Overview”).

“I believe the return to progressive rock is within the concept of the lengthy kind,” Wilson started, including:

To me, all of it comes again to that anyway. What’s “progressive rock”? To me, the one factor all of it actually has it frequent – and I’m speaking about the entire spectrum . . . from Pink Floyd to Frank Zappa, to Rush, to Mogwai, to Radiohead – the solely factor it has it frequent, actually, is it is a will to maneuver away from the usual pop kind. It’s sort of a – this concept you can take the listener on a journey and you may shock them, and fairly often, that includes doing one thing over an extended time frame.

Not all the time, however a whole lot of bands clearly veer in direction of 10, 15, 20-minute-long items, and that is clearly what this file is. And that, I believe, is likely one of the hallmarks – if not the preeminent hallmark – of what I consider as “progressive rock.”

Wilson additionally confirmed Prasad’s earlier remark relating to different genres that The Overview incorporates: “However, past that, as you sort of hinted at, all of my standard issues are happening right here.”

He continued:

There’s a chunk of digital music on the file [and] there’s a chunk of pure ambient music that finishes the file [“Permanence”]. There are steel riffs [and] there moments with robust pop sensibilities. There are moments of jazz. However, I believe the general construction and the general sense of journey might be one thing individuals would affiliate with the custom of progressive rock.

READ MORE: The Finest Non-‘Epic’ Tune by 11 Massive Prog Steel Bands

To his level, Wilson has already crafted a number of the greatest “epic” items in trendy progressive rock, reminiscent of Porcupine Tree’s “Anesthetize” (from 2007’s Worry of a Clean Planet) and “Raider II” from his second solo LP, 2011’s Grace for Drowning). Plus, and as Loudwire has beforehand mentioned relating to each prog rock and prog steel, main style artists such has Genesis, Jethro Tull, Symphony X, Haken, Devin Townsend and Sure have additionally crafted equally prolonged and elaborate items.

Do you agree with Wilson’s evaluation of prog rock’s most common element, although? Tell us!

Additionally, you possibly can watch your complete interview beneath.

Extra About The Overview

The follow-up to 2023’s The Concord Codex, The Overview launched on March 14, 2025 and contains contributions from frequent Wilson collaborators reminiscent of guitarist/vocalist Randy McStine, flutist/saxophonist Theo Travis and keyboardist Adam Holzman. In accordance with Wilson, its idea finds him “tak[ing] the listener on a Kubrickian journey into the darkness of outer area, seeing humanity for what it truly is – tiny, insignificant, dwarfed by cosmic distances involving billions of years.”

Thus far, it’s acquired extraordinarily constructive critiques from vital retailers reminiscent of MOJO journal, Basic Rock journal and The Prog Report. You should buy it right here.