Aviv Geffen: vocals, guitars
Steven Wilson: vocals, guitars
Guest Musicians
The Illusion Quartet (Daniel Salomon): Strings
Chris Maitland: drums on “Blackfield”, “The Hole In Me”, “Hello”
Gavin Harrison: drums on “Open Mind”, “Pain”
Jeremy Kaplan: drums on “Glow”, “Summer”
The Mistakes: music on “Scars”

Steven Wilson must have some Midas blood running through his veines. Everything he touches, changes into gold, or should I say, sounds like gold. Well, maybe not everything, because some of his projects don’t appeal to everyone, but Blackfield certainly does. A project that grew out of an invitation from Aviv Geffen, a famous singer songwriter from Israel, to play some gigs with Porcupine Tree in his country in the year 2000. He became a friend of Steven Wilson, showed him some of his songs and now they started Blackfield, one of the many Steven Wilson projects.

Blackfield could have been called Porcupine Tree Light. If PT hadn’t chosen for a little heavier style after “Lightbulb Sun” and “Stupid Dream”, they could have come up with something like this Blackfield. Most of the tracks are quiet songs with sudden but calculated outbursts. A fine example is the opener “Open Mind”. A simple but beautiful piano riddle gets “Blackfield” on the way, a song that certainly has a lot of hit potential. The song is entirely written by Steven Wilson and sounds as if it’s taken from a Porcupine Tree album.
I don’t particularly like Aviv’s voice. It’s very rough and hoarse from time to time. The best example is “Pain”, when his voice seems to break during the first lines, but the soft sound of Steven’s voice soon comes to the rescue. And that’s the strength of this album and this is surely due to a superb production (guess who? ;-)). Sometimes it’s even hard to distinguish their voices, although there’s a big difference between them, they are so complementary that they often sound as one. And together they produce a fabulous sound. But I’m glad Steven is doing most of the lead vocals.
You also get the chance to hear both Porcupine Tree drummers on the same album. Gavin plays on “Open Mind” and “Pain” and Chris drums on “Blackfield”, “The Hole In Me” and “Hello”. But if you think you can finally make your mind up about who’s the best of both drummers, I have to disappoint you because they both succeed with flying colours.
Some other highlights are: the beautiful guitar solo during "Summer", the very melodic chorus of Hello, the heavier part of Cloudy Now, with the electronically distorted vocals. To be honest, the whole song is a highlight and so is the rest of the album.
I bought my copy when it first appeared in Israel, but the album has now been released in a digipack with an additional CD with a few extra tracks. I can’t review these bonus tracks, as they are not on my copy. There’s also a limited vinyl edition (what a piece of art, in a gatefold cover with a poster with artwork from Lasse Hoile) on which there’s also a Blackfield version of the Porcupine Tree track “Feel So Low” from the album “Lightbulb Sun”.

Aviv and Steven, both wrote two of the songs and the rest was written together, but every song has gotten such an obvious Steven Wilson touch. Usually, when I like a record too fast, it’s very likely to end up in my closet after a while, but I’m sure this one won’t. It’s no progressive rock, but I don’t really care, as long as it sounds this good. The album is my choice as album of the year for the moment and only a very strong album will change my opinion. The total playing time is only 37 minutes, but what a 37 minutes. And at the end you push the repeat button anyway, so it really lasts 74 minutes!! ;-)