The Pineapple Thief

Dissolution KSCOPE

Refined proggers explore dark fringes of anti-social media.

They may inhabit the more genteel, pastoral end of the neo-prog spectrum, but there is real angst at work beneath the becalmed surface of The Pineapple Thief. Partly inspired by the current digital hellscape of anonymous online trolls and compromised privacy, Dissolution is the band’s first full album to feature sometime Porcupine Tree/King Crimson drummer Gavin Harrison, who came on board midway through their feted 2016 release Your Wilderness.

Ironically, for an album haunted by the isolating effects of modem technology, the musical parts were mostly recorded remotely in separate studios by the group’s geographically scatted members. This may explain why the results sometimes sound a little bloodless and clinical, as on manicured soft-rock noodlers like Uncovering Your Tracks. That said, Somerset-based singerguitarist Bruce Soord clearly has a gift for forensic finesse and understated beauty, weaving fine-grained audio tapestries from jazzy time signatures and liquid guitar kicks on the quietly anguished Far Below and the airy, twinkly Threatening War. Soord mostly keeps his Muse-lite musings concise, apart from the 11-minute White Mist, a slowburn widescreen soundscape of flamenco-tinged flourishes and summery ambience.

The Pineapples drift towards anodyne politeness at times, but their deceptively doomy ruminations reward close listening.