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Blackfield - Blackfield II CD (album) cover

BLACKFIELD II

Blackfield

 

Prog Related

3.74 | 437 ratings

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TCat
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin
4 stars Blackfield II is the 2nd (of course) album by the Steven Wilson/Aviv Geffin project. The music is very similar to Porcupine Tree's music, but in much shorter run times and more radio friendly. This album is quite similar to the first album where Wilson was heading the band as far as what you hear, but Geffin wrote most of the lyrics. Wilson also sings most of the songs except for 'Miss U'. This is the only track Geffin sings this time around except for where he shares lead vocals w/Wilson on 'Epidemic', 'Where Is My Love?' and 'End of the World'.

The songs are in the same vein as the debut album, drenched with strings and keyboards with only some short instrumental breaks. The songs are mostly around the 4 minute mark and only one, 'End of the World' slightly surpassing the 5 minute mark. The tracks are a little better developed on this album, but still seem to be lacking in this department.

Wilson's intention for Blackfield was to let Geffin eventually have control over the project, and while these songs are more penned by Geffin, they still have much influence from Wilson, and it really sounds that way too as it has his familiar tone and sound to the music, which is a good thing. The next album, 'Welcome to My DNA' would see Wilson step more into the background, and thus the quality of the music immediately suffered for it.

As for this album, it is still great music with great lyrics and great emotion from Wilson's influence. It still suffers from being more radio friendly and thus a lack of song development. Still, these are great, mostly straightforward songs that merit 4 stars. Porcupine Tree lovers will still love it and so will some others that don't like the extensive use of instrumentals in PT's music. For me, it suffers from there not being enough exploration, but I still find these songs a step above the normal radio friendly songs. The album is only slightly better than the debut album in I think the songs are better, but others may disagree. Nevertheless, the improvement is slight and not enough to elevate the rating over the debut album. Still, it's worth checking out.

TCat | 4/5 |

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