Blackfield - Blackfield V

Blackfield V, is, you guessed it, Blackfield's 5th studio album out in 2017. Blackfield is a collaboration between 2 strong musical forces in Steven Wilson and Aviv Geffen. While Wilson is probably more famous of the two rising to stardom with his other band Porcupine Tree and propelled even further into fame with his solo stuff; Geffen is a household name in his native country of Israel. Although since Blackfield was formed back in 2000 it has allowed Geffen's name to be spread further across the globe too. I have been a fan of Porcupine tree since 1999 when "Stupid Dream" came out and I cannot believe I only just discovered the existence of Blackfield last year as my Dad happened to mention it. Turns out he knew about them all all along and just didn't tell me about them. Ha.

Even though I bought this album last year (probably about May 2017), it is only the last couple of months I really stood up and took notice of this album.  The reason for this is the likes of "Family Man", "Lonely Soul" and "44-48" have sneaked on to my you tube playlist along with various songs from Blackfield's other albums. And I have to say I absolutley love this!  I really look forward to any Blackfield song popping up on my playlist now. They are just a delight. I realise though that people reading this will either have heard and be into Blackfield and probably be really into them or they will not have heard of them at all.  So to give a bit of background into how this record sounds, its mainly guitar driven short melodic songs with some piano/keyboards led for example "October". When I say short I am comparing this to Wilson's other material where the songs can go on for a lot longer. So the tracks in this album are generally between 3 and 4 minutes long.

As previously mentioned this album for me was a slow burner meaning it took me a while to get into it. But now I am in to it I can't believe it took me so long to get into it as it feels so accessable. As well as being shorter songs one of the things which differentiates this from Wilson's other work is that Geffen sings on some of the songs for example, "The Jackel" and "Undercover Heart" . These tracks they share the vocals and they compliment each other quite well. Wilson's vocals are quite soothing while Geffen's are a bit more gritty. The other thing I love about this album which you don't normally get with songs of this length on other bands albums is that there are guitar solos across this album again on "The Jackel" and "Lately" for instance. They maybe short but they are in there.  This is just really showing of these guys talents.

The track that stands out the most for me though which maybe isn't my favouite track muscially ("Lately" wins that award) but is lyrically is "44-48".  I don't normally look into lyrical content that much in songs. I am more about the music and how the words sound rather than what they actually mean. But with "44-48" it is hard to avoid the lyrics and the journey the song takes you on. And with this song it is a song about Steven Wilson's life.  You may be wondering how you can sum up your life in 4 minutes 31 seconds. Well without fully listing all the lyrics, one of the lyrics goes "And then, between 13-17....." and then goes on to do a wee description of what he did during that time. The funny thing I find about this is the repitition of "And then....". It takes me back to my childhood when I was in primary school and I remember doing a small bit of writing about my weekend and in it I would say. "Then I did this..." , "Then I did that...". And the teacher said not to do that and use different words instead of repeating myself all the time. Then all these years later a professional muscian at the top of his game is doing the same thing! I feel like going back to my primary school teacher and letting her hear this song to prove that it was ok to do what I was doing. :-P   In short though this is a great song and I just love the way it is constructed. Seems like such a simple idea but it works so well.

Overall this is a fantastic album. It is well balanced, melodic with loads of really good songs. I just can't believe it has taken me so long to discover this band and even then how long it has taken me to get into this album. Even if you are not a Porcuipine Tree fan or a fan of Wilson's solo stuff I would recommend checking this out as it is a lot more accessable.  If you are a fan of Porcupine Tree or Wilson's solo stuff, this is a condensed version of it with some vocals from a few other artists. I didn't even mention the female artist who appears vocally on some of the tracks which are also awesome.  I can't comment on Geffen's solo stuff as I haven't heard it but after this I am looking to try out some of his stuff too.