Porcupine Tree Album: “Sky Moves Sideways”

I tend to love the extended versions/alternate versions of songs. I hoped that this double CD would follow that trend, and it did not disappoint. On side 1, I knew what I was getting with Sky Moves Sideways 1( I had already heard it on "Stars Die-The Delerium Years 91-97")."Dislocated Day" moves up the speed of the first side and moves into a very strong, but subtle "The Moon Touches You Shoulder"."Prepare Yourself" is a great lead-in to "The Sky Moves Sideways 2", another great song. Disc 2 starts with the complete version of "Sky Moves Sideways" -alternate version (34 plus minutes), which if you love extended songs is a joy to the ears. "Stars Die" is a great song to listen to. Next we have the two version of "Moonloop", both of them are fine songs, although I prefer the longer 16 minute one myself.

I am glad that I had purchased this, and I highly recommend it to you if you're already a Porcupine Tree fan, or someone starting to listen to them.

Seems that ANYONE who enjoys the Pink Floyd-'Ummagumma' 2-CD classic is more or less guaranteed to dig this disc,or for that matter a good most of ALL Porcupine Tree releases.'The Sky...' was originally put out in 1995,as it was the group's second piece of work to rattle our brains.The line-up here,which is Steve Wilson-guitar&vocals,Colin Edwin-bass,Richard Barbieri-keyboards and Chris Maitland-drums appears to be a long-lasting one,because I believe this very line-up remains intact even today.'The Sky...' is not so much as space rock,like some may assume(including myself at first),but more like 'progressive art rock'.The tracks here I was sort of blown away with were the two(2)title cuts,"The Sky Moves Sideways-Phase One"(18:43)and "The Sky Moves Sideways-Phase Two"(16:46).Plus,I also liked "Moonloop",of which also shows up on their live 'Coma Divine' CD(see my review).Well worth checking out.

This album was the last in Porcupine Tree's initial psychedelic style; with the next album, "Signify", major changes would begin. Many people have drawn comparisons with Pink Floyd; certainly the opening section of the first song has a very Floydian vibe. But overall the album is not a Floyd clone at all, being squarely within the neo-psych territory of PT's earlier "Up The Downstair" and "Voyage 34", with trance-dance sections intermingling with pastoral guitars and sound collages dominating the two "phases" of the title track. "Dislocated Day" is straight-ahead wah-ified psychedelic rock. "The Moon Touches Your Shoulder" is probably the song that is closest to Floyd in character, with it's low-to-high build; but it is more the Floyd of "More" than anything else.

The album is uneven, however. Many of the instrumental sections sound a bit too much like noodling - good sounding noodling, but noodling nonetheless. "Sky Moves Sideways Phase 1" and "Dislocated Day" are two of the best songs of the entire pre-Signify era; but "Moon" developed better as a live song (available on "Coma Divine"), and the majority of everything after that on disk 1 is dispensible. The alternate version of SMS on disk 2 is really only of historical interest, while "Moonloop" is another song that improved with age as it was played live. "Stars Die" is however, a very nice low-key ballad.

So really my rating should probably be 3 1/2, because two-thirds of this total package is rather mediocre by PT standards. That does not mean that it is bad, or that it will send you frantically reaching for the OFF on your remote; it just tends to fade out on you after a while. So that is 3 material. But "Sky Moves Sideways Phase 1" and "Dislocated Day" are solid 5 material and "Stars Die" is a good 4. So there you are. If you are unfamiliar with PT's earlier style, this is still probably the best album of that group to start with. To overall PT fans, the first two tracks are worth the price of admission alone.

If you like Porcupine Tree, then this is a must add for your collection. Very different and the second and third cycle, it gets better.

Very impressive experimental progressive, with two parts of the sky moves sideways and in the second disc the whole Sky moves sideways, Is heavy the duration of the songs -