Porcupine Tree vs Steven Wilson solo is not a debate about line-ups but about two shelves of records made by the same man in two different ways: one with a band whose members write and play alongside him, one under his own name with musicians he chooses record by record. Both are still active. This guide sets out what each catalogue actually is – the dates, the line-ups, the records – and where to start with each.

How the two catalogues came about

Porcupine Tree began in 1987 as Wilson’s own project, an outlet for recordings he was making outside his duo No-Man, and only became a working band in the early 1990s. The line-up that most people mean is Wilson on guitar and vocals, Richard Barbieri on keyboards, Colin Edwin on bass and, from In Absentia (2002), Gavin Harrison on drums, replacing Chris Maitland.

Wilson began releasing albums under his own name with Insurgentes (2008), while the band was still working. Porcupine Tree finished the touring cycle for The Incident (2009) at the Royal Albert Hall in October 2010 and then stopped, without ever announcing a break-up, and for a decade Wilson said the band would not return.

It did, in 2022, as a trio: Wilson, Barbieri and Harrison, without Edwin. Closure/Continuation (24 June 2022) entered the Official Albums Chart at number 2, the band’s first top ten album in Britain, and reached number one on the physical, vinyl, CD and download charts, as well as in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

The band catalogue

Eleven studio albums, from On the Sunday of Life (1992) to Closure/Continuation. The catalogue moves a long way: psychedelic and ambient records in the 1990s (The Sky Moves Sideways, Signify), song-based albums at the turn of the century (Stupid Dream, Lightbulb Sun), and then the run that built the modern audience: In Absentia, Deadwing (2005) and Fear of a Blank Planet (2007), where the band added weight and Harrison’s drumming became one of its signatures.

The solo catalogue

Seven albums to date. Insurgentes (2008) and Grace for Drowning (2011) sit closest to the band; The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) (2013) was made with a touring band of jazz and session players; Hand. Cannot. Erase. (2015) is a concept album built around a single character; To the Bone (2017) and The Future Bites (2021) move towards pop and electronics, deliberately and with a good deal of public argument about it; The Harmony Codex (2023) is the most recent.

Alongside those, Wilson has spent fifteen years remixing the back catalogues of other bands in this series – Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull among them – which is why his name turns up on the reissues you may already own.

What actually differs

Two things, both practical rather than matters of taste. The first is authorship: in Porcupine Tree the other members write and arrange with him, and the three-way credit on parts of Closure/Continuation reflects that; on the solo records Wilson writes and the players execute. The second is range. The band catalogue stays within rock, from psychedelia to metal; the solo catalogue runs wider, from jazz-inflected records to pop albums that some Porcupine Tree listeners disliked on principle. If you want the band, you want the first; if you want to follow one writer wherever he goes, the second.

Where to start with each

Porcupine Tree: In Absentia (2002), the album that brought most people in, or Fear of a Blank Planet (2007) for the band at its heaviest and most concentrated. Closure/Continuation works as an entry point too, since it was written to stand on its own.

Solo: Hand. Cannot. Erase. (2015), the record most often recommended first, or The Raven That Refused to Sing (2013) if you want the one closest to classic progressive rock. Start with To the Bone only if pop songwriting is what you are after.

For the catalogues in order there are my guides to Porcupine Tree albums ranked and where to start with Porcupine Tree.

Go deeper

Start with the Porcupine Tree band guide, the best Porcupine Tree albums and the best Porcupine Tree songs, or with the Steven Wilson guide, the best Steven Wilson albums and the best Steven Wilson songs. For the drumming, see my guide to Gavin Harrison’s drum solos. For the same question in other bands, see the hub of prog rock’s great era debates. The story of progressive rock from the 1980s to today, Porcupine Tree included, is the subject of Beyond the Decades, the fifth book in my Beyond the Sound series.

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