Porcupine Tree - Signify
On September 30, 1996, "Porcupine Tree" released their fourth studio album, "Signify".
You can hear the change in "Porcupine Tree" as soon as the drums enter the title track. Until then, Steven Wilson had built entire worlds on his own from guitars, echoes and synthesizers. On "Signify", someone finally answers him. The bass starts pulling in another direction, the drums push forward, and the keyboards add a sense of unease. This sounds like a band beginning to find itself.
In its early years, "Porcupine Tree" was largely Wilson’s creation. The previous album, "The Sky Moves Sideways", had already brought Richard Barbieri on keyboards, Colin Edwin on bass and Chris Maitland on drums into the picture. Parts of it, though, still sounded like one man inviting other musicians into a world he had already built. On "Signify", they are there from the start. Edwin’s restrained bass, Barbieri’s unusual textures and Maitland’s feel for when to surge and when to step back give the music the sense of a real group at work.
Even so, Wilson was still very much in charge. He arrived with detailed demos, and the others recorded their parts over them. Apart from a group improvisation that became the backing for "Intermediate Jesus", the four rarely played together in the studio during these sessions. That approach explains some of the album’s character: nearly everything feels carefully planned, even as the players give it a pulse of its own.
The fractured voices of "Bornlivedie" lead into the title track, "Signify". Wilson’s insistent riff has an almost heavy metal edge; a few bars later, the keyboards begin to wrap around it, while the beat keeps driving ahead. The guitar returns to the same figure again and again, but this is more than a passing resemblance to krautrock. Wilson began the piece as a demo cover of "Hallogallo" by the German pioneers "Neu!". As the band worked on it, the tribute became an original "Porcupine Tree" track. You can still hear the motorik pulse and the hypnotic repetition, but Edwin and Maitland give them a weight and force of their own.
On "The Sleep of No Dreaming", the force of the title track gives way to quiet disillusionment. Wilson barely raises his voice, and the guitar and keyboards only deepen the sense of isolation. The short interlude "Pagan" then breaks the spell, like walking down a dark hallway before entering the next room.
The two parts of "Waiting" show both sides of "Signify". "Waiting Phase One" has a melody that stays with you after a single listen. Wilson’s acoustic guitar carries much of its sadness, while brief electric guitar phrases decorate the edges. Then, around 1:35, he leans into the electric guitar and wrings much more from it. "Waiting Phase Two" opens the same feeling into a space that has no need for a chorus. It does not simply repeat the first part; it lets the feeling linger. The movement from a melodic song to an instrumental journey is where "Porcupine Tree" sounds most assured.
Then "Sever" tightens everything. The rhythm is tense, the guitar cuts sharply, and the vocal sounds as if it is struggling to find a foothold in the arrangement. "Idiot Prayer" stretches that tension over a miniature epic that recalls some of the band’s work on the previous album. "Every Home Is Wired" seems gentler at first, but beneath its inviting sound lies a persistent unease.
On "Intermediate Jesus", we finally hear what happens when the musicians loosen their grip. The bass finds its own path, the drums answer it, and the keyboards spread out over both. This is no mere pause between songs; it is a chance to hear the four musicians listen to one another. It is the only album track whose backing grew out of a studio improvisation by all four members. Afterward comes "Light Mass Prayers", Maitland’s atmospheric piece, on which he also plays keyboards and contributes voices. It slows the pulse almost to silence and leads into the closing song.
"Dark Matter" asks for a little patience. It lets its melody reveal itself gradually before the guitar rises above it. The feeling builds slowly, drawing together much of what we have heard across the album. The atmosphere is mesmerizing. Even after nearly nine minutes, the final sound makes you want to begin again.
Even before "Signify" arrived, the single "Waiting" was introducing "Porcupine Tree" to new listeners through radio play in Europe. The album gave that attention something solid to hold on to: four musicians with a shared sound, able to move from a focused, melodic song to a long instrumental passage while shaping their own identity. The music press began to take notice, and the audience at their shows grew. "Signify" did not make them stars overnight, but it widened their audience beyond their devoted prog following and gave them room to grow. The live album "Coma Divine", recorded in Rome the following year, captured a more confident band onstage. The demos later collected on "Insignificance" show just how far the songs had travelled from Wilson’s sketches to the finished recordings.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
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