BLACKFIELD II

I found the Blackfield debut album very nice. Nothing special but a very good album, and I had been looking forward to checking their sophmore album out. I´m a bit disappointed really. It´s not the quality of the music though as it is high enough. It´s more the fact that it´s almost the same concept done over again with no new challenges or innovative things to be excited about.

The music is a mix of the more poppy Porcupine Tree and more commercial music. This is essentially pop done a slightly prog way. This time the music is even more commercial than on the debut and I´m having a hard time imagining myself listening to this in a couple of months. The lyrics are horribly simple and evolve around depressive/ melancholic subjects. I like those subjects a lot, but here it´s not done with finesse. It´s like getting a hammer in the face when Steven Wilson sings: I WANNA DIE IN THIS MOMENT on 1,000 People and that´s even one of the better ones in my ears.

Well all is not terrible and the sound quality and general production is very high, I just wish Wilson and Geffen would try some other tricks in the book, but I guess Steven Wilson gets his prog tendencies out in Porcupine Tree.

Don´t think this sounds much like Porcupine Tree even though Steven Wilson plays in this band. The structure of the songs are very basic Vers/ chorus and there are virtually no instrumental parts.

Because of the high production skills and the good compositions ( professionally speaking) this gets a 3 star rating from me, but it´s not something I´ll listen to very often, and if I want to hear Blackfield I prefer the debut.