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Steven Wilson – Drive Home

Steven Wilson has proven himself to be not only one of the best musicians making music today, but one of the best progressive rock musicians of all time. Whether it’s his time fronting Porcupine Tree, his amazing production on albums by prog legends such as Yes and King Crimson, or one of his many side projects, everything he creates is unique and beautiful.

It’s difficult to point to just one of his songs to exemplify this, but “Drive Home” from his solo album The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) isn’t a bad place to start. Wilson’s work is often compared to Pink Floyd, and while I don’t think that comparison is necessarily fair (Wilson is hardly a throwback act and is clearly not contempt with simply copying what other bands have done) this track proves that he is capable enough to stand up with the greats.

As with anything Wilson does, the production is flawless. Everything on this track is perfectly clean and clear. It’s obvious why Wilson is often named among the greatest producers working today, and the engineering by Alan Parsons certainly doesn’t hurt matters. It’s almost too perfect to talk about honestly. Given how popular “wall of sound” producing is nowadays, it’s fantastic to hear some actual dynamics in a song.

The track opens with some of the most memorable guitar work of Wilson’s career before his haunting vocals kick in. Given the story of the song, they fit in perfectly. The track is about a man crashing his car and killing his wife. Being so traumatized by the event, he blocks it from his memory and forgets why his wife is missing, until her ghost confronts him and makes him remember the event. Yes, it’s just as over-the-top as most prog rock is, and in a lot of people’s hands this would be cheesy and stupid. But Wilson approaches the subject perfectly, building a haunting atmosphere with his instrumentation and vocals that really improve the emotional content of the song. All this is capped off with an incredible solo performed by Guthrie Govan. This has to rank among my favourite guitar solos of all time, managing to convey the emotional impact of the man coming to the realization that his wife is dead. It’s an absolutely perfect way to end the song.

While I prefer to focus on the music here, the song’s video really deserves to be watched too. Containing some fantastic stop motion visuals, it manages to adequately tell the plot of the song, without removing any of the emotional impact, if anything adding to it. While it’s a tough call, this may be my favourite music video of all time, perfectly adding to the song as any great music video should.

Alter Bridge – Waters Rising

No matter how much success Alter Bridge (rightfully) gets, they will always be seen to some as “the band that used to be Creed.” It’s not uncommon to see the sentiment that frontman Myles Kennedy “made Creed good.” This is simply unfair. There are many reasons why Creed are among the most hated bands of all time, but to say that Kennedy saved them in any way is detracting from the impressive work of drummer Scott Phillips, bassist Brian Marshall and especially lead guitarist Mark Tremonti.

And so today I decided to look at “Waters Rising” a song where Tremonti takes the lead. Myles Kennedy is considered by many to be one of the best vocalists in rock, so singing a song with him and keeping up isn’t exactly an easy task, but Tremonti proves himself to be up to the job. It’s incredible to see how much he has improved since 2010’s “Words Darker than Their Wings,” or even since his 2012 solo album, All I Was. He doesn’t just keep up with Kennedy, they complement each other perfectly. Mark delivers a rough, hard rock style while Myles brings a more soaring, stadium sound to the table.

Alter Bridge are perhaps the best straight-forward rock band around right now. They may not be the most unique sounding band, and I understand why this turns some people off them, but they do manage to blend styles and genres a lot more than most of their contemporaries. “Waters Rising” is the perfect example of this. Tremonti’s background is in hard rock and metal, while Kennedy grew up on blues. The contrast between the two is often utilised to great effect on their songs, and adding in some progressive elements just serves to make the music all the more exciting.

Mother Love Bone – Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns

Mother Love Bone were often tied into the grunge scene, but I think they never quite fitted that grouping (although truthfully most of the bands in that scene didn’t really belong there). Perhaps it’s the inclusion of Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, who also played together in grunge pioneers Green River, supergroup Temple of the Dog and most famously Pearl Jam that led to them being lumped into this group. Or perhaps it’s simply the fact that they were a Seattle rock band in the late 80s/early 90s.

Whatever the reason I’ve always thought that they sounded more like Guns N’ Roses than Mudhoney and their most famous track “Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns” is proof of that to me. The song would fit in perfectly with GN’R’s Use Your Illusion period music, but I personally would argue that it’s far better than any of the tracks on those two albums.

The song opens with the “Chloe Dancer” piano section before slowly transitioning into the more guitar-based “Crown of Thorns.” Personally I love the softer feel of this track. While other Seattle bands were being successful making the loudest, dirtiest and simplest rock music they could, Mother Love Bone were able to craft an eight and a half minute long mostly acoustic piece, and have it be the defining moment of their (admittedly short) career.

People often wonder how successful Mother Love Bone would have been had frontman Andrew Wood not died so young. Honestly, I’m not sure they would have made it. They had just missed the time period where they were most likely to get big and were simply too fun to fit in with the grunge groups of the 90s. Without Gossard and Ament forming Pearl Jam, one of the biggest groups of the 90s, there would honestly be no reason to remember them either. Wood’s death was surely tragic, but if anything good came out of it, it immortalized Mother Love Bone and especially this song. Even if they never truly fit the grunge label, “Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns” has become one of the genre’s most popular and enduring songs.