Music Reviews

Whenever I talk with the once and forever Dolby Atmos mixing king Steven Wilson, I always ask him about what he’s going to be doing next, because he’s always working well beyond the born-on-date of whatever his current project is. At that point in our conversation, we’ll default to talking off the record (a.k.a., OTR) about any of the upcoming Atmos mixes he’s done—or will be doing—for a litany of other artists. Considering how release schedules are so fluid, some of those mixes can literally take years before they get released to the marketplace, either physically or digitally.

Back on the record, and right before we signed off our most recent Zoom call about his stellar 2023 release The Harmony Codex for a 2024 feature story for our sister site Stereophile, Wilson outlined for me the particulars about some of his work procedures. “In my studio, I have this whiteboard, and I write down all the things that I need to get to doing,” he explained. “They’re all on there. The problem is, stuff’s coming in faster than I can get through, which is a great problem to have.” (Wilson and I will be talking about the making of The Overview in the not-so-distant future, of course.)

Some of those OTR Atmos catalog projects have come out in the interim (such as his mindboggling Atmos mix of the core album for The Who’s 50th anniversary edition of Who’s Next, which I reviewed here on S&V in December 2023), and some have still yet to be announced. But when it comes to his own solo catalog, however, Wilson always strives to up the ante for pushing the Atmos envelope for new music—see “Personal Shopper” from 2021’s The Future Bites and “Rock Bottom” from The Harmony Codex, for starters—and he’s done it yet again with his eighth studio solo album, The Overview (Fiction).

The Overview, which was released in a myriad of format options a little over a week ago on March 14, 2025, is comprised of just two tracks—“Objects Will Outlive Us” (which runs 23:17) and the title track, “The Overview” (which clocks in at 18:21)—and they are absolutely beyond-the-cosmic pale in their respective Atmos iterations. More on those mind-blowing 360-degree mixes in a moment, but it’s also worth applauding the fact that The Overview officially debuted at No. 3 on the UK Albums chart—after having made it up to No. 1 on their midweek chart tally—and it was also the top seller in UK indie record stores, having hit No. 1 on the Official Record Store, Official Vinyl Albums, and UK Independent Albums charts, along with reaching the No. 1 slot on the German and Scottish Albums charts to boot. Not too shabby a showing for a two-song concept album as we live and breathe here in 2025, I’d say.

In official press materials, Wilson has described the new 42-minute album as being a “cinema-for-the-ears” type of release. Its concept is based on what’s known as “The Overview Effect” phenomenon, which is something astronauts experience upon going into space and looking back at the Earth. Many astronauts have since reported experiencing a “very profound cognitive shift” and then say they’ve come to understand “just how small, fragile, and beautiful the Earth is in relation to the cosmos, and therefore, by extension, just how small and insignificant the human species is.” Their emotional reactions run the gamut from out-and-out elation to full-blown depression. (Still wanna go into space, anyone? Let’s discuss.)

Back here on Earth and in their respective playback forms, both tracks on The Overview appear contiguously, but they’ve also been segmented into multiple parts—eight for “Objects,” six for “The Overview”—for listeners who opt to check out The Overview on the major streaming platforms. There, you can access Wilson’s intended one-two presentation as is (dubbed as “Disc 1”) or hear each song “chapter” individually (on “Disc 2,” though a number of those aforementioned segments of each core song have actually been doubled up). For us physical format lovers, the standalone Blu-ray is readily available from a number of retail outlets for an average SRP of $21.99 from the likes of Music Direct, Amazon, Burning Shed, and The SDE Shop. (Those latter two outlets, incidentally, will likely cost you a bit more if you want to go the import-to-U.S. route.)

As is his wont, Wilson also released a limited-edition hardbound edition of The Overview that initially went for $92 and is comprised of 2CDs, 1BD, and 96 pages of lavish artwork. That second CD houses five bonus tracks designated as The Alterview, including one track where Wilson added a full orchestra to “Objects Outlive Us” and renamed it, of course, “Orchestral Objects.” On the limited edition version of the BD (seen above, with the reddish label), “Orchestral Objects” gets both the full Dolby Atmos and 24-bit/96kHz DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 treatment, neither mix of which is included on the standard standalone BD (the one with the black/blue label). The limited-edition Overview hardback sold out almost immediately during its pre-order phase—but if you’re so inclined to get one, it currently goes for between $189 and $220 on Discogs (at least at the time of this posting).

Before I get into the Overview 360-degree-mix nitty-gritties, one important note for those of you opting for Apple Music Atmos playback here—when you type in “Steven Wilson” next to the magnifying glass icon at the very top of the home menu, and then go to his artist page and click on The Overview, you’ll note that it says underneath the album title and his name that it’s in “Hi-Res Lossless” (see above), but don’t let that throw you. When you next click on either the two full-length tracks or those individual track-segment options Wilson created only for streaming purposes, the phraseology underneath each song title changes to “Dolby Atmos” (see below). Sadly, this is a longtime Apple codec/coding flaw for far too many of their Atmos releases, and hopefully they’ll rectify it in the future. Rest assured, as long as you’ve enabled Atmos playback in your Settings (Apps > Music > Audio > Dolby Atmos > Automatic), then you’re hearing The Overview in Atmos.

And with that, let’s get to my overview of Overview! As always, I listened to these Atmos mixes through earbuds, headphones, and open-air speakers to see which way suits the artist’s intentions the best. Though I immersed myself in The Overview duly ’n’ diligently with my trusty AirPod Pros and House of Marley Liberate XLBT headphones, it should come as little/no surprise that the BD from the limited-edition hardback—as heard through my floorstanding GoldenEar Technology Triton One loudspeakers as the fronts, along with a pair of GoldenEar Triton Sevens as the rears and my current Sony Atmos speakers for those all-important upper-ether channels—was the uncontested winning Overview option. (As I briefly noted earlier, there’s also a 24/96 DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix—for the core album, and its instrumental-only version—plus there’s a 24/96 hi-res stereo mix of both of the latter options, for the two-channel-inclined.)

“Objects Outlive Us” opens with “No Monkey’s Paw” and Wilson’s a capella falsetto appearing on high: “I incline myself to space”—and, in the orchestral version, he’s accompanied up in the ether by cellos and other strings. Throughout the 23-minute track, said strings are mostly dominant in the height channels, secondary in the rears, and quite apparent on the sides, in effect enhancing the “regular” Atmos mix of the song that you’ll hear streaming and/or on the main BD without taking anything away from its own magnificence.

For section two, “The Buddha of the Modern Age,” Wilson takes a deliberate staccato approach to how he sings each compound syllable in the main channels, each line getting additional vocal layers as this section continues. When he gets to the line, “the blurred photos,” his lead vocals envelop all 360 degrees and the overall track volume swells—a patented SW move that never gets old, nor repetitive. As this segment ends with the resigned “we have no need to try,” the volume subsides and the clarity of Wilson’s piano, his and Randy McStine’s guitars, and Russell Holzman’s drums are crisp and unfettered.

The lyrical tone-shifts in segment three, “Objects: Meanwhile,” are courtesy of the words penned by XTC’s Andy Partridge, in effect serving as the modern equivalent of Paul McCartney’s “woke up, got out of bed” narrative counter to John Lennon’s core “I heard the news today, oh boy” storyline of The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” (which, as we’ll hear later, is no accident). Here, Wilson’s lead vocals stay put in the main channels (and, in the orchestral version, the strings continue to do their thing in the heights). Around the 7-minute mark, when he sings, “Can I be of service?” the vocal consumes all quadrants for emphasis. A minute later, SW’s thuddy, amped bass line takes over—and if your subwoofer channel is up to it, you’ll really feel the impact. A minute after that, a skittery guitar line (possibly McStine’s, as it’s not directly IDed who played it) rotates from channel to channel in a clockwise fashion.

Segment four, “The Cicerones,” showcases Wilson’s acoustic-guitar precision, and you’ll catch more of its presence in the rears. Arc five, “Ark,” revisits the staccato-vocal approach of “The Buddah” and the intensity of this track segment is more palpable as the lyrics unfold until the instrumentation—and the prowess of Wilson’s band—takes the spotlight when section six, “Cosmic Sons of Toil,” hits the Atmos stage. Russell Holzman’s insistent kick drum rules the side channels before he attacks his kit elsewhere in the soundfield even more ferociously—and then everyone has an instrumental go, including Adam Holzman on Rhodes piano and most especially McStine and his snarling guitar solo. (This musicianship master class sequence reminds me of the linchpin cutting-heads performances in “Luminol,” my favorite SW-in-5.1 track from 2013’s The Raven That Refused to Sing (and Other Stories).) The volume threatens to blow into the red in every channel before the final pullback, where everything subsides for segment seven, “No Ghost on the Moor,” with the return of Wilson’s falsetto and exact lyrics mirroring “No Money’s Paw” to a T. His slowed down, guttural, full-channel read on the line “Did you forget I exist” is even more chilling this second time around. (That line reading may also remind some of SW’s “God is freedom [. . .] God gives pain” section in Porcupine Tree’s “Halo,” from 2005’s Deadwing.)

The denouement in the eighth and final chapter, “Heat Death of the Universe,” is an ethereal wash led by a sustained McStine guitar riff reminiscent of David Gilmour, along with Wilson handling the strings here himself this time, with all elements rising in volume and physically ascending in the complete soundspace all the way up into the clouds as far as they can go, wholly reminiscent, but not derivative of the 24-bar atonal orchestral crescendo in The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.” (Told y’all it was no accident!) The industrial hum of “Heat Death” soon enough becomes all-consuming until it fully fades, and “Objects” then completes its 23-minute mission in abject triumph.

In a word: Wow.

And, in another word: Whew. After such an exhaustive aural journey, one couldn’t be faulted for desiring a bit of a palate cleanse/change of pace—and Wilson gives it to us with the much different sound design he concocted for the intergalactic journey that “Object” has preceded, the 18-minute “The Overview.”

The title track’s opening segment, “Perspective,” commences with liftoff effects and a more synthesized soundscape around it—keyboard swirls, and stark percussive hits ping-ponging in various channels in a way that I’ve recurringly likened to the pulsating red laser that moves across the eyeline horizon of a Cylon. The nebula narrative is clinically delivered quite high up in the height channels by Wilson’s life partner, Rotem Wilson, herself an accomplished artist whose vocals were also heard on a pair of tracks on The Harmony Codex. You’ll detect some slight echo on successive otherworldly locales such as “Sirius,” “Altair,” “Vega,” and “Polaris.”

And then, around the 4-minute mark, Steven’s falsetto joins in again, albeit essentially wordless here and somewhat back in the mix—and it returns again three minutes later, with an almost theremin-like tone to it. At this point in the track, you feel like you’re in a planetarium without a dome—as in, being thrust in the midst of a living soundtrack that’s conveying the limitlessness of outer space.

When it’s time for segment two, “A Beautiful Infinity I,” drummer Russell Holzman enters up the middle, his calming percussion akin to how Mick Fleetwood always knows how to set the proper backbone for whatever song elements unfold around him. Wilson’s lead vocals are laden with echo, and his observations serve as, in effect, a “Major Steven to Ground Control” moment. “I see myself in relation to it all,” he sings, the phrase “it all” repeating back into the mix like the way “gun” and “car” repeat in the second verse of Porcupine Tree’s “Arriving Somewhere But Not Here” (also from 2005’s Deadwing). Niko Tsonev’s guitar solo then takes center stage, quite literally.

Wilson’s vocals begin to waver deliberately in section three, “Borrowed Atoms,” with Adam Holzman’s plaintive piano acting as the proper instrumental complement. When SW gets to the line, “I’m already gone,” his voice registers that full 360-degree impact we all crave.

Segment four, “A Beautiful Infinity II,” resumes the existential mysticism of its titular predecessor (and listen for the tambourine too!), closing with the cosmos-encompassing statement, “But in a billion years its journey’s just begun,” with McStine’s too-brief Moog solo around it all. Fear not, as that leads into section five, “Infinity Measured in Moments,” where Rotem resumes her vocalized ether-tracking and Adam Holzman gets to take a more extended, swooshing Moog solo to cut through the rear-channel haze. Wilson adds layered, rhythmic handclaps and the universe spins, with more of Rotem and some nice ukulele playing from McStine to draw the “Super cluster complex” sequence to a close.

From there, the sixth and final section, “Permanence,” is an instrumental duet between Wilson on keyboards and celesta (a struck idiophone with a keyboard that gives off bell-like sound) and Theo Travis on soprano sax, their respective bleats, chords, and wails all aswirl for the last 3-4 minutes—celestial seasoning, if ever there was. (Incidentally, an extended version of “Permanence” closes out The Alterview bonus material, where Wilson noodled with some of the song segment’s core elements in addition to inserting some of Travis’ alternate takes.)

All of this is to say that Steven Wilson’s The Overview is one of the most engaging Dolby Atmos mixes you’re likely to hear this, or any other, year. Given how The Overview is presented and arranged, you’re likely to find something new to focus your ears and mind on, upon each successive listen—something I’d be happy to do again and again for the next billion years or so myself.

So, what could possibly be next for Steven Wilson? You already know I’ll be asking him about it straight up when we soon talk again, but one thing’s for sure—just saying “the sky’s the limit” for the man almost seems too, well, limiting, since whatever the inner cosmos of SW’s Atmos-centric mind can (and will) come up with may just be beyond our current level of comprehension.

The Overview can be listened to in Dolby Atmos here on Steven Wilson’s artist page on Apple Music.