“I said, ‘We’re going to reinvent the notion of the extended classic rock solo. This is going to be the “not Comfortably Numb” solo’”: Steven Wilson bringing back the long guitar solo – with a twist

Cult star Steven Wilson can best be described as a Renaissance man – aside from his prolific work with Porcupine Tree (and a string of other bands), the multi-instrumentalist has genre-blended seven solo albums – with the forthcoming eighth, The Overview, dropping in March, a return to form of sorts to prog with a conceptual throughline, 11 years after his Guthrie Govan-featuring opus The Raven That Refused to Sing (and Other Stories).

Most notably, Porcupine Tree’s Randy McStine contributes to the record by bringing back the extended guitar solo on Objects Outlive Us, albeit with a more contemporary twist.

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“I said to Randy: ‘We’re going to reinvent the notion of the extended classic rock solo,’” Wilson tells NME. “‘This is going to be the not [Pink Floyd's] Comfortably Numb solo.’ I wanted something with the same feeling of drama, but which is a million light years away from it. What Randy did is one of the highlights of the record.”

Aside from the 23-minute, 17-second Objects Outlive Us, the album features just one other song – an 18-minute, 27-second composition that, like the former, is made up of distinct sections that flow into one another.

As Wilson explains, “It intuitively felt like something long-form, analogous to a novel or a film. To continue the cinema analogy, the two tracks do break down into scenes, but ultimately The Overview is one musical journey.”

And while he has been ambivalent about being perceived as a prog rock musician over the past couple of years, the Porcupine Tree guitarist does admit that The Overview leans more towards prog than perhaps his more recent records.

“It’s not a nostalgic-sounding record, but I hold my hands up and say it’s an old-fashioned piece of conceptual rock, in the tradition of The Dark Side of the Moon and Tubular Bells.

“That’s a constant throughout my career. But this record, because it’s a concept of two long pieces, plays even more into a progressive rock trope.”

Steven Wilson’s The Overview drops on March 14, with the accompanying film premiering at London’s IMAX on February 25, along with a full UK, European, and North American tour.