“I could be listening to Abba one minute and then Morbid Angel. It doesn’t seem strange to me”: How Porcupine Tree reinvented progressive rock for the 21st century metal generation

Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson posing for a photograph in 2009.

Porcupine Tree did more than anyone to bring prog into the 2000s with metal-edged albums such as Fear Of A Blank Planet and Deadwing. In 2009, as they released their 10th album The Incident, mainman Steven Wilson dived back the band’s long and unexpected history and his relationship with metal.

All rock bands want to be loved. Some may claim that their only real concerns are creative and artistic, but the truth is that everyone who has ever picked up a guitar and written a riff wants to pick up a few fans along the way. But rare are the bands who can move steadily forward for a decade or two, weathering the vagaries of time and fashion while gradually gaining momentum and earning respect and credibility in increasingly huge amounts.