Steven Wilson's latest oeuvre – The Overview – is being lauded as the musical polymath's return to form in conceptual – or (dare I say?) prog – rock. Yet, while Wilson himself avoids the word due to potential associations with the record sounding “old-fashioned,” it's anything but – as epitomized by the tones and textures the guitars employ that tie in with the overarching space theme.
“I think a lot of old-school guitar players, they can play amazing – beautiful technique, beautiful feel. They can play beautiful solos. But sometimes they’re not so innovative with the actual sound,” Wilson tells Guitar Player, encapsulating his approach to the whole record.
“The possibilities for sound now have become greater. And I think Randy [McStine, the lead guitarist on the album] understands that. He's somebody that's very familiar with experimenting with pedals, processing, digital and analog.”
He continues, “And of course the obvious thing to say here is the sound very much affects the way you play, and I think sometimes guitar players forget that – or maybe they don't but the people who listen to guitar players forget that sometimes when you get sound it changes what you actually play.”
Wilson goes on to explain that he and McStine spent a lot of time searching for the “right sound” before even thinking about what and how the guitarist was going to play – all in an effort to defy expectations about what a guitar solo is supposed to do and how it should function within a song.
“It was kind of a way to redefine the notion of the classic, extended rock electric guitar solo, and a lot of that was finding the right sound before we even approached what he was going to play.”
And despite his quest to reinvent the extended classic rock solo, Wilson is quick to clarify that it is far from a “nostalgic-sounding record,” but, rather, an “old-fashioned piece of conceptual rock, in the tradition of The Dark Side of the Moon and Tubular Bells.”
The Overview is out now via Fiction Records.
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