Sometimes your life is in one of those positions where you're stuck, just stuck on something you can't get out of your system. Whether it's a corporate greedy boss snuffing away all the pleasures at work, your longtime girlfriend leaving you after she found out you cheated, or it's raining outside so you can't take that 7PM walk you always like to take in the evenings, there's always something bothering us. For those of us who are troubled by the big and small problems in life, music is a cure. An escape. Sometimes even a fleeting dream, one you just want to hold on to before it flits outside your grasp.
Blackfield is a band that makes such melancholy, accessible-for-everyone, even slightly catchy music at times. Fronted by the duo of Steven Wilson (yes, that guy from Porcupine Tree, No-Man, and so many other projects one may wonder whether he slept during the production of this record), and Israeli singer-songwriter Aviv Geffen, it takes the catchy pop aesthetics of the latter, and the excellent production and musicianship of the former and blends it into one big whole.
On tracks like Christenings, strummed acoustic guitar chords are flanked by soft, droning mellotrons creating a dreamy, sleepy landscape of music, and Steven Wilson's laid back, soft, melancholy voice takes the forefront. Never indulging in excercises of loud, bursting guitars or applications of the "look I can play 1000 notes a minute" technique, both members ensure the plateau of lilting music doesn't drift into outer space by adding catchy vocal lines, keeping the songs short and to the point, as they croon about the little things in life that make you drop a tear.
Strong song after strong song follows, beginning with the a little more ravaging opener Once, which uses some distorted guitar riffs, a heavenly chorus, and instantly hummable melodies to directly grab the listener and seat him comfortably through the ride. Meanwhile, in Miss U, a cliche pop song topic is touched on, lost love, but Blackfield pull off the melancholy emotions without seeming fake or cheesy. Epidemic sears the listeners heart with some angst-ridden lyrics about depression, but when the first piano notes tinkle into the song, you know this is the real deal.
But the real gem on the band's second outing is the closer, End of the World, in which everything that the band has at its disposal is used to the full effect. Wilson and Geffen trade lead vocals, and pull off some awesome harmonising in the chorus. On top of that their knack for displaying a good sense of melody is present on this song as well, as you will have the chorus stuck in your head for a good while. The cherry on the cake is the fact that the songwriting is arranged perfectly, because never on this track does a note sound like it's been placed wrongly or could have been omitted altogether.
And whereas on the debut album, some songs would appear out of place and make the album inconsistent, on here there is only one song that appears to be just slightly below the rest. That is This Killer, probably the only non-memorable song on the album. The melody and atmosphere SW and Aviv Geffen create here falls just short of the mark, failing to keep the listener hypnotized as another dreary landscape passes by. But what this album mostly is, is a phenomenal slice of catchy pop rock, imbued with a strong sense of hummability, nostalgia, melancholy and songwriting. Highly recommended.
