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██▌ Artist...: The Pineapple Thief ░▐██▌
░▐██ Album....: Versions of the Truth ░██▌░
▓▐██ Year.....: 2020 ▓▐██▓
▓▐██ Rel.Date.: 2020-10-25 ░▐██▓
▐██ Genre....: Progressive Rock ██▌░
░ ██▌ Label....: Kscope ██▌
▐██ Source...: CD ▐██
░▐██▌ Type.....: Album ▐██▌░
▓▄████ Quality..: VBR, 44.1kHz, Joint Stereo ████▌░
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1. Versions Of The Truth 5:39
2. Break It All 4:23
3. Demons 4:32
4. Driving Like Maniacs 3:29
5. Leave Me Be 4:14
6. Too Many Voices 3:16
7. Our Mire 7:26
8. Out Of Line 4:00
9. Stop Making Sense 3:20
10. The Game 4:46
11. The Swell (Bonus Track) 4:18
------
49:23
When it comes to post-OK Computer English rock music, the Pineapple
Thief haven't garnered the mainstream success of groups like Muse,
Elbow, and Coldplay. Yet the Pineapple Thief, led by frontman and
principal songwriter Bruce Soord, have quietly and at a steady clip
compiled one of the most impressive discographies out of all their
contemporaries. Beginning with 2008's Tightly Unwound, the pace has been
a new album every two years. The latest, Versions of the Truth, marks
the 13th studio outing for this perennially underrated English outfit.
If one were to hear segments of the Pineapple Thief's strongest LPs û
2010's Someone Here Is Missing and 2014's Magnolia, by this critic's
lights û they might understandably wonder why Soord and his bandmates
aren't used to selling out arenas by this point. Those most likely to
know the group are those in the progressive rock community, as all of
the Pineapple Thief's records since Tightly Unwound have been recorded
for the Kscope label, home to other prog luminaries like Porcupine Tree
and Anathema. Compositionally, Soord strikes a more mainstream-friendly
version of the balance that defines progressive-tilting British rock:
technically intricate instrumentation and melancholic emotion, cerebral
yet immediate rock 'n' roll. Tunes like "Show a Little Love" (from
Someone Here is Missing) and "Alone at Sea" (from Magnolia) would have
been believable chart hits had the chips fallen a certain way.
Soord's skill as a songwriter is building elaborate songs from within
the verse/chorus structure; even when the instrumentals reach their most
complex moments, they rarely get lost in the noodling that plagues prog
rock at its worst. A ten-minute epic like "White Mist" on Dissolution
(2018) feels expansive in the way that the best progressive music can
be, while at the same time always staying close to the core hook that
runs throughout the song. More than any act in the prog world, Pineapple
Thief are best poised for crossover success, even if the days where sad
rock music played by white British men dominated the charts is ever
receding.
That opportunity grew even stronger in 2016 when the band brought Gavin
Harrison aboard to man the drum kit. Harrison rose to prominence as the
drummer for Porcupine Tree beginning with that group's landmark disc In
Absentia (2002). As a drummer, his trademark is a kind of surgical
precision in his playing that can switch on a dime from headbanging riff
sections to gentle, jazz-inflected moments of respite. Your Wilderness,
Harrison's first album with the Pineapple Thief, showed real promise for
his role in the band. Songs like "In Exile" and "Tear You Up" benefit
from his unique rhythmic designs, notably the tom work on the bridge to
the former. Yet on that LP and its follow-up, Dissolution, Harrison's
presence doesn't quite settle into the existing Pineapple Thief sound.
Particularly on Your Wilderness, his distinctive drumming style feels
like an enhancement of the music, rather than an integral ground-up
component. But on Dissolution, Harrison starts to acclimate, especially
on "White Mist", to date one of the band's finest pieces.
Now, on Versions of the Truth, the Pineapple Thief emerge as a fully
cohesive unit with Harrison, his approach to percussion now naturally
aligned with Soord's songwriting. The title track, an instant classic
for the band, anchors itself on a repeating lyric that connects with the
theme of "post-truth" that runs throughout the record: "It's not how I
remember it." Over five serpentine minutes, "Versions of the Truth"
seems like it will arrive at a chorus, but it never quite does. Like a
puzzle, the song defines itself through its contrasting sections rather
than a standard verse/chorus configuration. A hypnotic marimba figure
leads at one point, accented by Harrison's gentle yet tension-building
cymbal work, while late in the piece, heavy riffs clash against a
descending and discordant piano line. The juxtaposition of the mercurial
song structure and the repeated "not how I remember it" refrain
literalizes the notion of conflicting truths.
Here, and on songs like "Break It All" and the contemplative "Driving
Like Maniacs", the lyrics explore the ramifications of divergent truths
colliding in people's lives, with Soord treating "post-truth" as a
metaphor for interpersonal dynamics rather than a vehicle for political
commentary. The conceptual focus of Versions of the Truth and the tight
interplay between Soord, Harrison, Jon Sykes (bass), and Steve Kitch
(keyboards), mark a new creative high for the band, easily their best
since Magnolia.
Although the Pineapple Thief has undeniable "prog" chops, Soord, as a
songwriter, prefers concision and focus. Even the most indulgent guitar
solo or instrumental break on a Pineapple Thief record will typically
amount to a quarter of what the Dream Theater-aping guitarists of the
world would allow themselves to do. This songwriting approach holds on
Versions of the Truth. With it clocking in at around 45 minutes and an
average song length of four and a half minutes, the record offers a lot
to those who seek more adventurous rock music without committing
themselves to odysseys of time signature changes.
The seven-minute "Our Mire" cribs from the ambitious structure of "White
Mist" a little less successfully, but it features some of Harrison's
sharpest drumming. The way the clean, echoey guitar lead on "Out of
Line" halts before a section of quiet keyboard plinking is just one case
in point for the Pineapple Thief's skill in establishing dynamic
distinctions. Alongside these unshowy-yet-virtuosic moments sit some of
the most accessible tunes of this group's career, like lead single
"Demons" and "Leave Me Be".
Frontloading proves to be the only notable folly of Versions of the
Truth. The strongest cuts all appear in the first five tracks. The back
half features some experiments that don't quite pan out, like the
Elbow-esque mid-tempo of "Too Many Voices" and the contemplative "Stop
Making Sense", which, instead of paying tribute to the Talking Heads,
brings back the marimba from the title track to an atmospheric yet
fleeting effect. Those moments, however, do not detract from the overall
success of the album. It's a musical portrait of a band that continue to
deepen their sound after decades of making music.
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