2004-09-03
Blackfield is a collaboration between Israeli singer songwriter Aviv Geffen and British musician and producer Steven Wilson (who is also responsible for the great prog rock band “porcupine tree” and the excellent art-rock, electronica, experimental pop, jazz and contemporary classical group named “no-man”)
“Blackfield” is the best example for the concept of progressive pop, it has the simple beautiful catchy melodies which are usually brought by Aviv Geffen and those are backed up by the powerful production and arrangements by Steven Wilson, together they have created this ten separated beautiful pieces , that are shrouded in a romantic ,melancholic and slight mysterious atmosphere .
Three of the songs which appear on the album are cover versions to Aviv’s Hebrew songs (“cloudy now”, “scars”, “glow”), two more songs are 100% Steven Wilson (lullaby, blackfield) and could’ve as easily be placed in an average Porcupine tree album. The remaining five songs were co- written by the two musicians.
Aviv takes the leading vocals on only two tracks (“the hole in me”, and “pain”) , Steven sings the leading vocals on the rest of the songs while Aviv does back vocals.
The album opens with the track called “open mind” which gives us a taste of what we’ll be hearing on the album. It starts with a gentle acoustic guitar and leading vocals by Steven and then introduce us to some amazing vocal harmonies Beatles style, the rest of the song sounds like something pink floyd could easily have written sometime along their career. The following song is the theme song of the album called “Blackfield”, it carries a hazed melancholic feeling which is lead by Steven’s piano intro and vocals.
The most approachable song on the album is the mainstream melancholic ballad called “Hello” which was written by Aviv and composed by Steven.
The English version of “cloudy now” sounds much better then the original one, it’s more mature, elegant and meaningful.
In the European version there is a bonus CD which contains a live version of “cloudy now” from the Israeli TV program “the center stage”, and two demo tracks that didn’t make it to the album.
Aviv as well as steven are both very much concentrated in their own music styles, they don’t push each other into new musical horizons, but they complete each other.
“Blackfield” is an album which is full of passion, romance, catchy simple rock tunes. If you’re into slow heart moving songs then this is definitely the album you’d like to spend some time hearing.
Roy Povarchik
