The Overview by Steven Wilson, the Record and the Concert.

Steven Wilson's latest album, "The Overview," was released on March 14, 2025.
In the article:
The Overview: The Album
The Overview Tour 2025: The Concert

The album is inspired by the panoramic view of Earth from astronauts in space and achieves the goal of making us gaze at the blue planet through the porthole of a spaceship. It's like watching night and day alternate, a sense of wonder but also fear, and above all a sense of impotence and human degradation in its presence. From the comfort of your own home.

These aren't two single suites, but each side is composed of separate songs that connect to each other.

Objects Outlive has a strong psychedelic feel, highly refined sounds, and syncopated vocals that move as the song moves.

The Overview begins with a hypnotic psychedelic space rock.

A more rock-like section takes us back to Gilmourian atmospheres (nice influences...), and there's also piano as a wind of silence blows.

It takes its time to explode, and it does so with great taste and refinement. The choruses are beautiful, especially when the odd time signatures come along, infecting the same psychedelic atmosphere of symphonic rock and folk rock.

The album has a thrilling rhythm section and guitar with distorted sounds, but always in control, never invasive.

The keyboards are amazing, and the production is fantastic, something Steven Wilson has (constantly) accustomed us to.

The album is a synthesis of prog, from the psychedelic sounds and atmospheres of the '70s to modern electronica. But it also features "classic" keyboards and synthesizers that we love so much. Vangelis would have loved it, and even Stanley Kubrick would have given it a try.

The entire album gives me the feeling that Wilson had a blast. And I do too, listening to it.

I consider it his best solo album after his first four, unrivaled albums.

Many young people, both men and women, along with us older ones, a far cry from the last concerts (Wakemann and Hackett), where the average age was certainly mine (55), and on stage there were giants who, although "young at heart," were young in the 1970s.

The "Sala Santa Cecilia" was beautiful, with its structure and perfect acoustics, which would later prove to be the best location for this concert and, in my opinion, for any prog concert.

The concert opened with the new album played in full, with essential video support, images of rare beauty, which conveyed the emotions of the songs and made them a story not just to be heard but to be observed. Every now and then I glanced at my wife, perhaps more absorbed than I was, with a look of amazement at that wonder; neither she nor I expected it.

A digression is in order here: anyone who lives with a prog music fan knows that when they put on a record, it will be highly complex and will vary depending on the subgenre, the artist, the era, and the country of origin. In my case, they know that I will describe not only the history of the album—the era, its importance to the genre, the band and its exploits—but also the era of my vinyl, the color, the cover, and more. They also know that on that vinyl, in the most common of situations, there are only two or three songs over 45 minutes, and that if the vinyl is double, or even triple, all of this will be duplicated or tripled. She also knows that when this happens and all these circumstances occur simultaneously, I'll listen to it on headphones out of a certain annoyed pity for her, bouncing to incomprehensible rhythms without music, showing her the album cover in the silence of the house, and making gestures and looks of admiration (for the album), all the while eclipsing myself from the world for the corresponding time, and any interruption will be accepted only in the case of extremely serious or highly destructive events.

Well, yesterday, Claudia was completely absorbed, stunned, focused. Her looks and words told me "fantastic," "incredible"...

True, that's how listening to and watching the new album went, a set that ended with a standing ovation and a few minutes of applause that, in my opinion, amazed Wilson and the band.

The following are tracks from the albums The Harmony Codex, Hand, Cannot. Erase., The Sky Moves Sideways by Porcupine Tree, Insurgentes, 4½.

The immersive experience continues, but not all songs are supported by videos. When they are, the audience listens in reverent silence, ready to explode at the end. The rockier songs, however, give us the feeling of a "classic rock" concert, and the adrenaline pumps.

The band is extraordinary, as are the dynamics on stage.

Craig Blundell is capable of unleashing power and precision across a wide range of volumes, sudden explosions alternating with virtuosity, electronics, and jazz touches.

The moments where he plays with Wilson on stage are hilarious (or maybe the other way around), trying to mute the cymbals while he hits them (but you have to be lightning-fast to be faster than Blundell, who obviously won the game), or when Wilson asks him to turn down the volume, increasingly unsatisfied, until he ends up with a very complex drum line played with infinite lightness... I bought a signed tom head of his, and boy (if you're drummers, you understand me!) I used it during the tour concerts!!!

Randy McStine was magnificent on guitar, with his extreme sounds at certain points of the concert, high-pitched and strident, crucial to every song, wonderful solos, and a great stage presence.

The bassist, Nick Beggs, is a cyborg alien from the planet Borg. He not only gave us short solos on several occasions, but also has an extremely musical way of playing the bass (when needed) and a technique that stresses the instrument's full range. With him, however, we're not talking about stage presence, but rather theatricality, in the positive sense of the word. Brilliant.

Adam Holzman on keyboards was immense on every song, with a keyboard solo that was a privilege to hear live. He was also brilliant when the spotlight was on Wilson with his electronics, and he conveyed a retro, seventies vibe that impressed me. Speed, precision, taste, immense.

Then there's Wilson, who approached this concert with his great simplicity and humanity, which didn't detract from the overall quality of the work. He deserves credit for putting together an exceptional audiovisual spectacle and rock concert. He speaks to the audience in perfectly understandable English, repeatedly addressing the issue I mentioned about the "ridiculous" length of songs at a prog concert, asking if anyone in the audience was there by chance accompanying a fan and what they thought. It's certainly funny, but I'm sure even non-prog fans had an unforgettable experience. He plays the guitar beautifully, and of course the keyboards and synths, and sings perfectly, with the band's great contribution on the backing vocals...

His introduction to the band was beautiful, when he says: "I'm used to going on stage with musicians better than me," and then introduces them. Great humility and respect not only for the musicians but for the work of an excellent team in every respect, from an absolute genius.

Great show, lucky to have been there.

The Setlist

Set 1:
The Overview
Objects Outlive Us
Set 2:
The Harmony Codex
Home Invasion
Regret #9
What Life Brings
Voyage 34 (Phase I) (Porcupine Tree song)
Dislocated Day (Porcupine Tree song)
Abandoner
Impossible Tightrope
Harmony Korine
Vermillioncore
Encore:
Ancestral
The Raven That Refused to Sing

The band
Craig Blundell
Randy McStine
Adam Holzman
Nick Beggs

The Songs and Line-Up of the Album

The Songs
- 1."Objects Outlive Us" “This is were it started”
"No Monkey's Paw"
"The Buddha of the Modern Age"
"Objects: Meanwhile"
"The Cicerones"
"Ark"
"Cosmic Sons of Toil"
"No Ghost on the Moor"
"Heat Death of the Universe"

- 2. "The Overview" "This is where it ends"
"Perspective"
"A Beautiful Infinity I"
"Borrowed Atoms"
"A Beautiful Infinity II"
"Infinity Measured in Moments"
"Permanence"
Running time: 41:44

The Lineup
"Objects Outlive Us"
- Steven Wilson – vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, percussion, piano, pump organ, production, mixing, engineering
- Adam Holzman – Hammond organ, Mellotron, piano, Rhodes, synthesizer
- Randy McStine – backing vocals, guitar, sound effects, vocals
- Theo Travis – flute, saxophone
- Russell Holzman – drums
- Willow Beggs – vocals
"The Overview"
- Steven Wilson – vocals, guitar, bass, drum programming, keyboards, percussion, piano, pump organ, production, mixing, engineering
- Adam Holzman – backing vocals, piano, Rhodes, synthesizer
- Randy McStine – backing vocals, guitar, keyboards, sound effects, ukulele, vocals
- Niko Tsonev – guitar
- Craig Blundell – drums
- Theo Travis – saxophone
- Rotem Wilson – vocals