In Absentia is the seventh studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released on 24 September 2002. The album marked several changes for the band, with it being the first with new drummer Gavin Harrison and the first to move into a more heavy metal and progressive metal direction, contrary to past albums psychedelic and pop rock sounds. Additionally, it was their first release on a major record label, Lava Records. It was very well received critically and commercially, with it often being considered the band's crowning achievement, and selling over triple what any of the band's prior albums had in the past. In Absentia is the seventh studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released on 24 September 2002. The album marked several changes for the band, with it being the first with new drummer Gavin Harrison and the first to move into a more heavy metal and progressive metal direction, contrary to past albums psychedelic and pop rock sounds. Additionally, it was their first release on a major record label, Lava Records. It was very well received critically and commercially, with it often being considered the band's crowning achievement, and selling over triple what any of the band's prior albums had in the past. false 2025-11-08 05:53:29 2002 2002-01-01 2002-01-01 87 Alternative Rock Art Rock Progressive Metal Progressive Rock Psychedelic Rock Rock 111612 2113733 04ab3ae0-d4ca-4b72-9831-cf2767b79945 169c4c28-858e-497b-81a4-8bc15e0026ea 94cfdc4c-5eb5-3b62-9dbe-8e051528c6e5 /media/data/media5/Music/Porcupine Tree/In Absentia/folder.jpg Porcupine Tree Porcupine Tree 1 1 04:25 1 2 05:56 1 3 04:39 1 4 04:59 1 5 07:56 1 6 06:33 1 7 05:32 1 8 05:25 1 9 05:22 1 10 04:14 1 11 07:21 1 12 05:53 2 1 05:22 2 2 07:16 2 3 06:07 Porcupine Tree are an English rock band formed by musician Steven Wilson in 1987. During an initial career spanning more than twenty years, they earned critical acclaim from critics and fellow musicians, developed a cult following, and became an influence for new artists. The group carved out a career at a certain distance away from mainstream music, being described by publications such as Classic Rock and PopMatters as "the most important band you'd never heard of". The band began as a solo project for Wilson, who initially created all of the band's music himself. By late 1993, however, he wanted to work in a band environment, bringing on frequent collaborators Richard Barbieri as keyboardist, Colin Edwin as bassist, and Chris Maitland as drummer to form the first permanent lineup. With Wilson as lead vocalist and guitarist, this remained the lineup until February 2002, when Maitland left the band and Gavin Harrison was recruited to replace him. Porcupine Tree's early sound evoked various styles of psychedelic rock, space rock and experimental rock, later moving towards a more progressive/space rock direction comparable to that of Pink Floyd. Upon signing with Kscope record label in the late 1990s, the band began to approach a more mainstream alternative rock sound. By the early 2000s, the band had signed to a major record label and shifted their sound again, this time in a more progressive metal direction. In 2010, after the tour in support of their 2009 studio album The Incident, the band became publicly inactive as Wilson committed himself to his solo work and other members began working on their own separate projects. However, Wilson, Barbieri and Harrison continued to intermittently work on material in secrecy over the course of the following decade, leading to the release of their album Closure/Continuation on 24 June 2022. Atlantic