Blank Banshee - Gaia (Album review)

 Album review -



When Blank Banshee released his debut solo album in 2012, he successfully cemented himself as one of the pioneers of a new form of trap influenced vaporwave, now known as ‘vaportrap’. Since his ambitious debut the mask wearing Blank Banshee, has continued to release music that has kept him at the forefront of the genre. The Canadian artist and producer, (real name Patrick Driscoll) has recently released his 4th full length album titled ‘Gaia’, a new collection of fifteen songs all clocking in at less than 3 minutes, leading to an album that is a little more structured and thematic than his previous releases. This doesn’t necessarily make for a better collection of songs though, in the past Banshee has never been one to shy away from experimentation and risk taking, however the majority of tracks on Gaia feel a lot more safe and underdeveloped. At times Gaia feels like it has a lot more in common with a game or movie soundtrack than an album which isn’t particularly a bad thing if the album could continue to maintain the vibe created on the more moody atmospheric pieces.  

Gaia does feature some of Blank Banshee’s best work to date and when the album is good, it’s really good. Take for example the albums second song ‘Mindtrap’, which features these shouty aggressive punk like vocals and some intruding bass that culminate together to make a super bouncy and panicked energy. The song feels raw, it works as a short track because of how intense and heavy the song hits your ears, in a similar way to the song ‘My Machine’, from Blank Banshee’s previous album ‘Mega’.

The third track on Gaia, ‘Tetralix’, is a slightly more manic take on a song you’d find on the soundtrack of a family friendly Nintendo game. The track has some gorgeous breathy vocals and nice stringy plucked synths that create a very blissful soundscape.

Another big highlight, and potentially the albums best track is ‘Neo Geo’, a very optimistic and hopeful song, it makes you feel at peace with its combination of droning synths reminiscent of something you would hear on a mid-90s Moby album and a choppy trap drum line. Neo Geo really stands out as a more fleshed out and finished idea in the scheme of the album.

As Gaia comes to an end we get another big track in the form of the panicky ‘Fund My Death’, another appearance of the punk like vocals that appeared earlier on in the album. The juxtaposition on this song from chill and atmospheric to an intense choppy beat makes for one of Gaia’s more interesting songs.

The albums main issue is that these highlights are few and far between, there’s an abundance of underwhelming tracks on Gaia that despite the album being only 30 minutes long it can feel like a draining listen. ‘Blue Marble’ sounds like a messy collection of fast paced drums and random synths pieced together on a track that seems as if it’s trying to tell you something but it’s not quite sure what. The track ‘Green Ray’ curates a nice enough vibe but again its gets repetitive pretty quickly. On ‘Mythrill’ we get a darker and more intrusive chilled song but it still feels like an under finished and uninspiring collection of sounds. The albums final track ‘Escape’ works as a blast of neo synths that you would hear in an intense chase or escape scene from a movie but as the final song on the album it feels out of place and a strange, disappointing end to the album.

Blank Banshee's Gaia features some really interesting and creative tracks littered across a fairly uninspiring album. It seems like Banshee’s albums have been getting progressively worse since his debut but he still is capable of writing the occasional genius piece of vaportrap that keeps him so influential to the genre. At times it seems like Gaia would benefit from a few tracks being a bit longer and having time to explore their own themes a little more. Gaia isn’t the worst album if you’re willing to work for the better tracks but it does continue Blank Banshee’s series of increasingly underwhelming releases.

Best tracks – Mindtrap, Neo Geo, Aquaduct, Tetralix

Worst tracks – Blue Marble, Green Ray, Enso, Sentinel

58/100

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