BASS COMMUNION (II)

The second album from Bass Communion continues where the debut left. Long drawn out synth sounds that make atmospheric soundscapes. There is nothing else on this album but synth and samples, so don´t expect rock drums.

Bass Communion is another one of Steven Wilson´s ( Porcupine Tree, Blackfield, No-Man etc...etc) projects. Bass Communion is a one man project which means Steven Wilson plays everything. Well play might be too big a word to use, because I suspect that it´s a computer that´s playing most of the music you hear here on (II). There are a few human touches though. The music is slow and the songs are generally very long. IMO the musical ideas overstays their welcome by several minutes every time. Some songs are more enjoyable than others but these songs would have been better on a soundtrack to a movie than as a musical experience by themselves.

This is probably something post rock fans could appreciate as the music does sometimes remind me of bands like Godspeed You Black Emperor just without any of the rock parts that at least makes some post rock bands bearable to listen to. This is way too ambient and trivial for me. Had there been a rock element in the music I might have viewed this differently. Songs like 16 Second Swarm and Drugged III does have their moments. The latter reminds me a bit about the most ambient Nosound songs again without the rock element and the first has a great atmosphere. Grammatic Oil and Dwarf Artillery are slow pulsing songs. There are no vocals on the album which would have made this much more interesting IMO.

The cover is really beautiful and signals the calm within the music.

I´m struggling to give this a 2 star rating as this music speaks against everything I believe is good music, but I must admit this is at least a bit more enjoyable than the debut from Bass Communion which I found was a complete waste of time. I still don´t like this music much and I won´t recommend it to anyone really ( well maybe a few post rock fans will like it, Who knows ?), but as I said there are a few enjoyable moments on the album and I will give it 2 small stars. I just don´t have the patience for this kind of music.