Blank Banshee - GAIA Album Review

 

6.0/10

Blank Banshee returns with an experimental, yet underwhelming album on "GAIA".

This has been a hard review for me to face mainly because I feel like I can't really make up my mind on this album - I've come back to it a lot, and each time I've come out feeling different from how I felt listening to it before. It's definitely a difficult album to review, but I'll try my best.

Blank Banshee is the vaporwave alter-ego of Patrick Driscoll, a music producer from Canada. They've been on the scene for a while now, releasing their debut album "Blank Banshee 0" back in late 2012 - this album was, and still is, an extremely ambitious and influential project in the vaportrap subgenre, and it still holds up today! His later releases, "Blank Banshee 1", and "MEGA" were met with similar acclaim as well, and that brings us to today.

As of right now it has been four years since the release of MEGA, and outside of a short EP last year titled "Metamorphosis", we haven't heard much from him - that is until this year, which saw the release of his latest full-length, "GAIA".

In this release's best moments, it made me feel like I was going bird-watching on an alien planet. The atmosphere on a lot of the tracks here is impeccable, and considering this album's lack of outside sampling, it really goes to show just how talented Blank Banshee is as a producer without samples.

My main issue with this album, and the reason the score is (somewhat) low is because of the fact that this album is a mixed bag. So... let's talk about that. This is going to be a long one.. it's a Blank Banshee album, OK?

The album kicks off with the track "Primordial", which I think is a great opening track - I love the dissonant horns that come into the track occasionally and the track just feels so alive in general. I think it's a wonderful way to start things off.

"Mindtrap" is a song I like for the most part. I love the instrumental on this track but I don't think the vocals from Cormorant don't fit very well. The vocals feel a little bit too all over the place. With that being said, I do love the instrumental here, especially the bouncy bassline that comes in during the breaks.

"Tetralix" is another great moment for the album, and it's probably my favourite song here. I adore the guitars and the bass here. There's also some vocals again from Cormorant that fit a lot better here, and the subtle vocal manipulations are a very nice touch.

We also have the song "Blue Marble" which has really grown on me since I first listened to it - I love the main synth on this track. This track has a good balance between upbeat and somewhat eerie which really works.

Next up on the tracklist is "Green Ray" which is a pretty good song - I like how the track develops and the hard-hitting bassline here is unforgettable.

It transitions very nicely into the track "Teknofossil" which for me is where the album kind of becomes a mixed bag. I like the main melody of this song, but it's very all over the place and it doesn't develop very much over its 3-minute runtime. I don't think this song is bad or anything but it could have been a lot better in my opinion.

I could probably say the same for "Mythril", which if anything feels like a prelude to something much greater, but the wait doesn't pay off before heading into the next song.

Then we have the track "Chlorine" which is a step in the right direction - the heavily manipulated vocals feel distant in the mix, and the drums here are great - they almost feel like something out of an IDM track. Definitely a personal favourite from the album.

"Aquaduct" has some interesting sample choices here and there - such as a bird call being used as a melody later into the track, and what sounds like a car door being slammed shut as the beat. I do like these choices but it faces the same issue as a lot of the other tracks here which is that it doesn't really stand out, outside of the sampling techniques I mentioned earlier. This song is OK, but it could have been a lot better if there was more to it.

Then we get to another personal favourite of mine, "Enso" - I love the sparkly synths on this track, and the drums are great too. I also really enjoy the subtle strings that come into the track towards the end, too.

"Neo Geo" seems to be a definite fan favourite and it's easy to see why. This one feels really grand and full of life, and the melody is very catchy. Definitely one of my personal favourites.

Then we have "Sentinel" which again just doesn't really stand out - it doesn't develop very much and it's one of the longer songs on here, but I'm repeating myself at this point...

Then we get into which is by far my least favourite track here, "Fund My Death". The main problem on this track for me are the vocals. The lyrics seem really nonsensical ("Fund my death, no disrespect"), and it kind of seems like the writing process behind it was just looking for things that either rhyme, or sound kind of edgy - not to mention the vocals don't really fit onto the song either. I do like the ambient outro here, and the part at 0:17 sounds very pretty. I just do not like the lyrics here to be perfectly honest.

"Uncanny Valley" is the penultimate song here and I think this song is alright - it does still suffer from the same issue affecting a lot of the tracklist here but the main melody is great. I should probably say that the melodies on this album are definitely one of its strong points - they're all very catchy and vivid, and some of these songs are definite earworms.

"Escape" is the last song off of the album, and I think of all the songs to finish this album off, this was probably the worst one to put as the closer. The entire song sounds like it's building up to some amazing dubstep drop that's going to completely blow my mind and change the way I view music forever... and then it just ends before anything actually happens. 

It's the most underwhelming way to close off a song in my opinion. And it definitely helps me appreciate just how IMPORTANT a closing track is - a good album closer can leave a massive impact on how you view an album, it's literally the last thing you hear. And for me, Escape doesn't do a good job on closing off the album. And that's pretty much my thoughts.

In case you can't tell from everything I just said, my thoughts on this album are pretty mixed - I think a lot of the tracks here have a lot of room for improvement and are underwhelming, but there have still been moments on here that really stuck with me. Overall I don't HATE this release, but like I said, there's lots of room for improvement. Aaaaand, I think that's about all I can say about "GAIA". Let me know what you think of the album, and that's about it. Thanks for reading.

6.0/10

Fav Tracks: Primordial, Tetralix, Blue Marble, Green Ray, Chlorine, Enso, Neo Geo, Uncanny Valley

Least Fav Track: Fund My Death