Label: Kscope Records
Release date: September 4, 2020
Production: The Pineapple Thief
Album length: 45.10 min
Genre: Progressive Rock/Art Rock
Rating: 9.0/10
The Pineapple Thief are a British art rock outfit for modern times. Ever since joining the Kscope Records roster in 2008, the band has been diligently cranking out albums at two-year intervals, and its creativity and inspiration haven’t flagged for a second. Album after album, The Pineapple Thief prove that this is a band in a constant state of artistic ripening. Its “reaction to stimulus” is perpetual artistic flexibility and shapeshifting.
Even though the artistic boundaries the band moves within, and has called home for quite a while now, were drawn up long ago, in 2017 The Pineapple Thief brought a drummer into the ranks who helped them take the quality of how they interpret their ideas up yet another notch. Especially when it comes to leveling up the tricks that depend on top-level technical polish. That adds even more variability to the playing and a whole lot more flexibility in how the ideas get expressed. The new member, who shares the credit for raising the band’s game, is none other than Gavin Harrison. The man who left a lasting mark on all the most recognizable albums by the legendary Porcupine Tree. And since he’s one of the best drummers in the world in the field of experimental music, Harrison got a phone call one fine day from the most illustrious Robert Fripp, inviting him to join the cult British progressive rock heroes and genre pioneers King Crimson, where he still “clocks in” today. Harrison’s first Pineapple Thief album thus turned out to be the forerunner to “Dissolution” (2018).
The days when The Pineapple Thief might have become as big as their fellow Brits Muse, Elbow and/or even Coldplay are obviously long behind them, and today The Pineapple Thief count as one of the most unfairly overlooked bands of the new era, slyly walking the thin dividing line between the gains of British progressive rock and alternative rock. That’s the invisible line where you stand in credible artistic balance and get followed, on one side, by Radiohead devotees and, on the other, by Porcupine Tree fans. “Versions of the Truth” is an album that follows up its confessional predecessor “Dissolution”.
Here, too, the band is extremely sophisticated, developing a deep, penetrating sorrow and melancholy and masterfully tapping an internalized feel for the graduated growth of moods that grab you with extraordinary intensity as they climb through contrasting waves, and in which the band at times also builds a distinctly predatory grip of crafted drama theater. The album is unpredictable and grows on you slowly. But once it finally sticks in your ears, it starts rewarding the listener richly. The album is a string of sudden mood swings, because The Pineapple Thief have mastered the art of extreme contrasting leaps. They can play incredibly soft and delicate, where you revel in a conciliatory dialogue of countless arrangement subtleties and sonic blends, and in the very next moment they can lash out furiously at their instruments and crank up the intensity. They hint at this right away in the opening (title) track, which gets to its atmospheric crescendo before the end by way of precisely that (just described) contrasting flip of atmosphere. The band reinforced one of the main motifs, which the song starts building from and also ends on, with a kalimba. Yes. That kind of conjures up a fusion of “world music” elements and sounds a bit “Gabriel-esque” too. The album closes with The Game, which carries some similar moments.
On the next track, Break It All, The Pineapple Thief go decidedly dark. The gloom, backed by samples, evokes Porcupine Tree in the era of “In Absentia” or “Deadwing”. Gavin Harrison intensifies those feelings with his drumming technique, recognizable from a mile away, which is of course the very definition of Porcupine Tree albums. Driving Like Maniacs and Too Many Voices are sophisticated and gentle, with Soord’s effected melodies (vocoder included) taking the lead in combination with piano, bringing to mind something akin to what Elbow do. Demons is one of the album’s catchiest songs and would have no trouble finding its way onto the radio, with a memorable chorus and a motif that goes “Arabic” and works phenomenally, both of them lodging in your ears. The arrangement within this song, as well as its development, will please Steven Wilson connoisseurs. Our Mire carries a crafty blend of progressive rock and post-punk elements. It’s the album’s most uptempo track, with a “staring” bass stepping into the foreground too. So. “Versions of Truth” is a very varied album that keeps the listener constantly on edge, in the tension of signature drama theater and, at times, solemnly sorrowful bombast.
It isn’t right that the previous paragraph keeps drawing comparisons to various artists, even if there are only three of them, since it’s clear The Pineapple Thief developed their own artistic originality years ago. Still, this frame of reference may help especially those who don’t know the band and are trying to get a rough feel for what kind of musical substance we’re talking about.
The Pineapple Thief gained enormously with Harrison. That also shows in the effectively working chemistry between the drummer and bassist Jon Sykes. On the new album the two musicians have pushed the reach of that fascinating chemistry even further, complementing each other and using all the available artistic space for individual expression. All the while they make sure there are no “ego-trip excesses,” meaning that with their variability and insight they brilliantly contrast the solid compositional format and in that way raise the sheer appeal of listening to the record. Add to that the fine mechanics of placing lots of sonic pastels, where keyboards, piano, programmed samples and effected guitars flow into each other, with Soord’s extraterrestrial vocals “commanding” them as if cast in one piece. The latter is actually the only thing that, in the band’s new era, still recalls a hint of milder alt-rock flavor.
It’s all clear! The Pineapple Thief have put out yet another extremely good album, one the band’s followers badly wanted. “Versions Of the Truth” is another brilliant work of exceptional artistic maturity. The soundscape is vivid and varied, the atmospheric turns grab you, and the songs reach a high level of idea-wise variety from one to the next. With the new album The Pineapple Thief don’t really offer anything new that you haven’t heard before, and even though the starting point for the new record is its predecessor “Dissolution”, “Versions of the Truth” as a whole comes across a shade more focused and concentrated.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Versions Of The Truth
2. Break It All
3. Demons
4. Driving Like Maniacs
5. Leave Me Be
6. Too Many Voices
7. Our Mire
8. Out Of Line
9. Stop Making Sense
10. The Game
Line-up:
Bruce Soord – vocals, guitar
Steve Kitch – keyboards
Jon Sykes – bass guitar
Gavin Harrison – drums
