Porcupine Tree - In Absentia

In Absentia is the seventh studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, originally released in September 2002 via Lava Music.

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, in contrast to the psychedelic and pop rock sounds of their previous albums. This was also their first release on a major record label, Lava Records.

In Absentia 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.

Steven Wilson summarized the band's changes at the time during an interview with Ultimate Guitar magazine as:

“In Absentia was all written before Gavin came on; even the drum parts were kind of programmed. But it’s one of those times sometimes in life when everything comes together. I’d written these songs and I was very much more interested at that time—having worked with Opeth—in the idea of combining a more kind of brutal or metal aspect back again into the fabric of the music. At the same time Gavin came along and Gavin was a very different drummer to our previous drummer, Chris Maitland. He was much more of a powerhouse and he was much more technical. He had more of a contemporary edge to his sound so it was just one of those really lucky things that he just came in and he played those songs and just blew everyone away and everything just kind of came together. And of course it was the first record we made for our new label and we got signed to a big American label for the first time [Lava Records]. Gavin was the final piece of that equation in a way—he just totally raised the bar in terms of not just the drumming but just the musicianship right throughout the band. Everyone was listening to Gavin and saying, “Fuck, wow. We really need to step up our game.”

This album is regarded as the crowning achievement to date in the Porcupine Tree discography.

This double album 2LP record set is a 2018 reissue featuring the Steven Wilson remixed audio on 180 gram black vinyl housed in a gatefold sleeve, with printed inner sleeves, pressed in Euorpe via Kscope.