This was confirmed by a post on their official website: "Writing for the next PT studio record is well underway, with the band recently spending two weeks scheduled in the English countryside working on new tracks.

Recording of these pieces and a new 35-minute song cycle [written by Steven Wilson] were due to start in February..." A tour was announced on the band's website and MySpace, along with dates, following release of the new album.

The self-produced album is completed by four standalone compositions that developed out of band writing sessions last December - Flicker, Bonnie the Cat, Black Dahlia, and Remember Me Lover feature on a separate EP length disc to stress their independence from the song cycle.

The track "Time Flies", described by Wilson as "sentimental" and the "centerpiece" of the album, became a music video directed by usual Porcupine Tree collaborator Lasse Hoile, along with an edited single.

The irony of such a cold expression for such seismic events appealed to me, and I began to pick out other 'incidents' reported in the media and news, I wrote about the evacuation of teenage girls from a religious cult in Texas, a family terrorizing its neighbours, a body found floating in a river by some people on a fishing trip, and more.

[19] Readers of the Teraz Rock Polish magazine voted Steven Wilson as the "Best Foreign Instrumentalist/Musician of 2009", surpassing other widely known artists, such as The Edge, Jerry Cantrell, Jack White, Kerry King, Kirk Hammett, Tom Morello, Mark Knopfler, and Omar Rodríguez-López.