The Double Gun Journal Winter 2016

With Your Wilderness, Bruce Soord's the Pineapple Thief shift their musical focus away from their exploration of polished rock so evident on 2012's All the Wars and 2014's Magnolia, and back toward contemporary prog. Drummer Dan Osborne, who made his debut with the band on Magnolia, proved short-lived in his role; he has been replaced by Porcupine Tree/King Crimson kit man Gavin Harrison. Soord also enlisted guests including Supertramp's John Helliwell on clarinet, Caravan's string player/arranger Geoffrey Richardson, Godsticks' guitarist Darran Charles, and a four-voice choir. Harrison's addition can't be overstated. His playing extends the reach of their musicality exponentially.
The album title denotes themes of isolation, loneliness, and alienation - not unfamiliar ones in PT's oeuvre. That said, they've never been explored with such a brooding focus as they are here…

As years pass, it’s only natural for some of us to idealize the past. Nothing will ever surpass the first time we jammed our favorite bands and of course, one common complaint is that music nowadays simply lacks the emotional foundation it had in one’s favorite era. The problem becomes even more frequent with progressive metal…