'Hand. Cannot. Erase.' A Chilling Journey Through Rock

The start of “First Regret,” the labyrinthine first track from progressive rock guru and former Porcupine Tree frontman Steven Wilson’s newest concept album “Hand. Cannot. Erase.,” is a series of pastoral British bells and youthful hollerings. The encroaching synthesizer that seeps in harkens back to “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” the equally epic suite that bookended Pink Floyd’s 1975 “Wish You Were Here.” Where Pink Floyd aimed for innovation, however, Wilson wisely chooses pastiche; he doesn’t attempt to say anything inherently new about rock music with in his harrowing 11-song odyssey (assuming it’s possible at this messily post-post-modern juncture) but rather touches on every iconic sound that the genre has ever seen. Just as the Pink Floyd atmosphere solidifies in “First Regret,” tight and modern digitized drums jerk the track into a post-punk polka before settling into a gorgeous refrain that belongs on a CSNY album. The constant stylistic shifting would be overwhelming with a lesser musician and creative force, but Wilson, a virtuosic guitarist, producer, and conceptualist, is more than up for the task. “Hand. Cannot. Erase.,” for all of its stylistic acrobatics, is a somber examination of the loneliness of modern life as well as a delightful examination of the impermanence and startling diversity of contemporary rock.

Wilson claims to have been inspired to write “Hand. Cannot. Erase.” by the story of Joyce Vincent, a successful London professional who suffered domestic violence, largely cut off all communication with her hundreds of relatives and friends, and ended up sitting dead in her apartment for more than two years before being discovered by authorities. While the concept is far more thematic than referential, even a casual listener could feel the haunting sadness and sense of isolation that pervades the lyrics of the album. Wilson takes the corporate malaise of “OK Computer” and multiplies it by 10—ostensibly writing from Vincent’s perspective, Wilson laments the boringness of chores and the claustrophobia of white-collar life. On the almost-titular “Hand Cannot Erase,” Wilson gripes about the dishonesty of the Internet: “Writing lying emails to our friends back home / Feeling guilty if sometimes we wanna be alone.” Despite the impressionism of Wilson’s storytelling, Vincent, or Wilson’s semi-fictional equivalent, comes into focus. By the end of the album, where the Vincentian voice claims on both “Ancestral” and “Happy Returns” that she is getting drowsy, her impending death and neglect is palpable.

“Hand. Cannot. Erase.” is Wilson’s fourth solo album, each of which has been remarkably different and hard to classify. His latest, however, succeeds both in being both his conceptually strangest and most aurally accessible to date. The longest song, “Ancestral,” is the most diverse stylistically, trading in the classic rock vibes of the first track for sounds of 1990s Bristol; deep bass collides with free-jazz flute for a whopping 13.5 minutes. While the latter track is sometimes overwhelming, it is never boring or tuneless—Wilson straddles the line between the anti-forms of more experimental jamming and the tightness of pop music convention with a razor’s edge so thin it threatens to cut the listener’s predictive abilities into a million sterilized pieces.

The contributions of two unexpected female vocalists, the famed, decidedly saccharine Welsh mezzo Katherine Jenkins and inaugural Israeli Idol winner Ninet Tayeb, add a welcome additional perspective to Wilson’s tragic tale. [Instead of a cheesy Christmas-time ballad, ???] Jenkins offers a sober remembrance of a forgotten sibling on “Perfect Life.” Is Jenkins’ voice meant to be the disturbed interior monologue of Wilson’s protagonist? A break from the action? Tayeb switches off verses with Wilson on two tracks, offering a dynamic escape from his sometimes weary words.

Despite Wilson’s monumental guitar breaks and placid, ambient interludes, the album builds almost continuously until its bone-chilling conclusion. The one weak spot and break in momentum is the instrumental “One Regret.” While there are longer periods without vocals on the album, the song comes right after “Home Invasion,” a powerful statement about online consumerism (“Download love and download war / Download the shit you didn’t want / Download the things that made you mad / Download the life you never had”), and before the ethereally folky “Transience.” The passable prog rock exercise is by no means a bad track, but the tune is far less creative and thematically-engaged than anything else on the LP.

The penultimate track, “Happy Returns,” is a terrifyingly cheery melody over a creepy letter from Wilson’s protagonist to her brother. The staccato acoustic strumming in conversation with “Hey brother, many happy returns, its been a while now / I bet you thought I was dead” is, even after an album chock full of confusing macabre confections, too strange to comprehend.