I HAVE some friends who think that Porcupine Tree is the best thing since sliced bread but, honestly, I have had a bit of a tough time with this band. I’ve sifted through their “classic” mid-1990s period (albums like Signify and The Sky Moves Sideways) and waded through the waters of the post-millennium “masterpieces” (In Absentia and Deadwing, etc). But I’ll be damned if this band, fronted by one Steven Wilson, doesn’t leave me cold.

Yet there is always enough promise to keep me coming back for more. Seems like only yesterday that I was expressing similar doubts over the last album, Fear of a Blank Planet, and now here comes another monolithic effort.

Technically, The Incident is a 55-minute song split into 14 parts. There are times when you can have fun ... the 11-minute Time Flies is a highlight for me, but more often than not, PT sounds like a band fatally trapped in some sort of unspeakable no man’s land between Britpop and latter-day Pink Floyd soundscapes.

They manage to carve out a string of aching ballads, sonic explorations and an occasional excursion into overdrive heaven without really making the sort of musical statements one would hope for.

Once again, I’ve encountered a Porcupine Tree album that promises much, and isn’t really that bad, yet which fails to chart the new waters I keep expecting them to sail into.