Hand. Cannot. Erase. is clearly the most melodic musical creation Wilson has conjured up as a solo artist. Even if the aforementioned epics twist and turn provocatively, and the middle couplet of Home Invasion and Regret explode in a miasma of some of the most overtly proggy sounds that Steven Wilson has created thus far in his career, there is still some strikingly contemporary fare here.
The Manics-like title track, Perfect Life and Happy Returns all hint at the kind of catchy, more easily digestible side of Wilson’s songwriting that have thus far given us the likes of Drive Home, Shallow and Lazarus. Add in a gentler vocal approach from Wilson himself and a bigger PR company working the new album than previously, and one wonders if there are people in the Wilson set-up who are pushing for mainstream acceptance for the once-bedroom studio musician. Will the geeks finally inherit the earth?
“Well I certainly don’t think a huge mainstream hit is beyond me,” he says, matter-of-factly. “But I don’t go out of my way to write anything that deliberate. Maybe, when Porcupine Tree had just signed to Lava around the time of In Absentia (2002) there may have been pressure from the label to come up with some kind of single-orientated material. But I don’t look back on that particularly fondly. I write what I write and it has to fit the over-all concept of what I’m doing.
“Yes, I would love for one of my songs to become huge, and I believe that in the past I’ve written stuff that could easily cross over. But the industry, for what it actually is these days, isn’t really set up for someone like me to do that. And in reality, does anyone really break through on the scale anymore? Of course I harboured dreams of being a rock star when I was a kid. But these days I see myself as a musician. It’s different.
Posted from: https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-story-of-steven-wilsons-hand-cannot-erase