FOR THE MUSIC

Probably floats much closer to 2.5, but, slightly perversely, rounded down because I know I like Blackfield. A lot. Best choruses on this website. So, "FTM": in short, some decent ideas, no embarrassingly poor songs, but this is worse than the reviled IV. I know everyone here sets a different threshold for "mainstream pop", but to varying degrees, Blackfield's first five albums were high-quality albums in a more accessible vein. As in, loosely pop-rock, but far better written and executed than most of what litters the charts, and, on two occasions, just about deserving of 5 stars. We're in 2020 now, and Wilson's investment has basically gone by this point; he plays and sings a bit, but doesn't write or produce, which is what he does best. Consequently, we get terribly plastic-y, shiny production, mainly on the drums (genuinely unforgivable), and little of the richness, slightly retro feel that elevated previous releases.

Some of the songs are more than passable. "Falling" is probably the highlight, on the grounds that (1) it's the only song to exceed four paltry minutes, (2) great chorus (as usual with Blackfield) and (3) echoes of Porcupine Tree's "Dark Matter", but in 4/4. Singles "Summer's Gone" (at least by the end) and "Under My Skin" work pretty well as pure pop songs. The poptimist in me can defend for "After All" and "White Nights". The slower ones, though, where Blackfield usually excels, fall a bit flat. Closer "It's So Hard" is overwrought and sentimental, "Over and Over" is boring and "Garden of Sin" is the nadir; although it has a melancholy weight to it and a nice descending guitar figure in chorus, Geffen's singing is extremely poor and the verse beginning "So pick your grandma's sleeping pills / And one by one swallow them" somehow sinks deeper into self-lacerating parody. The opener is stompy and pop-sheened, as well.

Which is odd, because this isn't by any means a sombre album, as the best Blackfield albums are. There's just little to really commend here at all. Oh, and it's barely half an hour, which isn't problematic per se, but just leaves the whole thing feeling underwhelming. Even IV had some great cuts ("Lost Souls" and "Faking"), but this doesn't. It's not unlistenable by any means; I'd just never suggest any non-Blackfield-fan (prog or otherwise) listened to it ahead of the vast catalogue of decent-but-uninspired music out there.