The Overview (album)

''The Overview'' (stylised ''TH5 OV5RV95W'') is the eighth studio album by English progressive rock musician Steven Wilson, released on 14 March 2025 via Fiction Records. Featuring only two 20-minute tracks, it returned to a progressive rock sound after Wilson had previously moved into more electronic territory with the two preceding releases.

Background

The record is a concept album about the overview effect, a cognitive shift caused by viewing the Earth from space. This concept was utilized, according to Wilson, as a starting point for the sound of the record, which recalls the sound of such seminal prog artists as Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, and Vangelis, though brought into "a modern context". Wilson has stated that the album is going to be considerably more progressive rock influenced than much of his recent work, stating that he felt the concept geared itself well to the genre.

On 25 February 2025, the record premiered at the BFI IMAX alongside a commissioned film by Miles Skarin. Alongside the main album, a deluxe edition titled ''The Alterview'', featuring an additional hour of music, was released. A tour will also start in promotion of the record on 1 May 2025, Wilson's first headlining solo tour in over seven years.

Critical reception

For ''Mojo'', Tom Doyle gave the album 4/4 stars, writing: "Wilson has to be admired for boldly venturing into the prog regions where his contemporaries fear to go. By doubling down on ''The Overview'', his status as the progfather is secure, alongside his alignment with those mixing-desk visionaries he so admired in his youth. While some of its more indulgent elements may not be to all tastes, his scale of ambition and dazzling audacity should be applauded."

Ed Power in ''The Irish Times'' awarded 4/5 stars, writing that the album "feels like one of the better Christopher Nolan films translated to music: it’s vaulted, self-serious and a bit silly. But the sheer ambition has its own kind of beauty; you’ll be impressed by Wilson’s determination to keep a straight face amid the sonic absurdity. In the best sense, it is out of this world, a pirouetting profusion of prog pyrotechnics that will charm students of the form like a saucerful of secrets."

In ''The Guardian'', Alexis Petridis wrote: "An 18-minute-long suite that throws in every influence imaginable from Warp Records-style techno to Floyd melancholy to gleefully OTT prog-metal and somehow, astonishingly, works: unexpected but triumphant."

Giving the album 4.5/5 stars, Chris Roberts wrote in '' Louder'': "''The Overview'' is not so much a return to form (Wilson hasn’t been off it) as a return to full-fat, unskimmed prog from the man whose work with Porcupine Tree gave the genre a good name even before it earned reappraisals in more recent years."

Track listing

Digital edition

The digital edition is in two parts: the first comprises "Objects Outlive Us" and "The Overview" as single audio tracks; the second comprises "Objects Outlive Us" and "The Overview" split into their component tracks.

Personnel

"Objects Outlive Us"

* Steven Wilson – vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, percussion, piano, pump organ, production, mixing, engineering
* Adam Holzman – Hammond organ, Mellotron, piano, Rhodes, synthesizer
* Randy McStine – background vocals, guitar, sound effects, vocals
* Theo Travis – flute, saxophone
* Russell Holzman – drums
* Willow Beggs – vocals

"The Overview"

* Steven Wilson – vocals, guitar, bass, drum programming, keyboards, percussion, piano, pump organ, production, mixing, engineering
* Adam Holzman – background vocals, piano, Rhodes, synthesizer
* Randy McStine – background vocals, guitar, keyboards, sound effects, ukulele, vocals
* Niko Tsonev – guitar
* Craig Blundell – drums
* Theo Travis – saxophone
* Rotem Wilson – voice

Charts

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Overview (album), The
2025 albums
Steven Wilson albums
Fiction Records albums