Review Summary: Bvdub reiterates that a few pretty noises does not a good ambient album make.
A cursory listen will tell you that there's only one flaw to
Tribes at the Temple of Silence, bvdub's sixth full-length album. That dilemma being that he puts himself in an artistic dilemma and unfortunately reacts with ambiguity, leaving
Tribes... as a work that oscillates between mildly assuming drones and uncomfortable layers of cacophonous bliss. But the artist's indecision leaves both of these styles just so: two separate entities with two separate personalities that shift abruptly when tracks change, not when a progression of moods calls for it. Therefore, one second you'll be bored to tears with mediocre drone and some nice sound effects before being bombarded with dub-like textures that take on a New Age fascination.
And though that by itself obviously sounds like such a delight, further analysis allows you to detect that most of the atmospheres are a one-and-done as well. Bvdub's ambient textures aren't convincing enough to continually throw you into the depths of whatever atmosphere his electronics are meant to set up. Rarely are you absorbed by the mood sets at hand, and so all you see is a bunch of mismatched, watery drones, parallel to some glittery layers of electronic effects.
Now this is the real problem with
Tribes...: even though you can notice slivers of potential, bvdub stymies nearly all of it with his inability to pick a vibe and allow it to grow. He's forcing something that isn't meant to happen and it's just so goddamn obvious that the development of these already threadbare impressions is contrived. This all makes it so that bvdub's sixth full-length effort comes out as nothing more than what it is, a half-baked collage of moods that don't coalesce into something more than pretty, disjointed noises.
