Night in Dullsville
- Night is Invisible - 1
- New-age music so dull it should come with a warning.
If inducing boredom and uncontrolled drowsiness is the object of a record, then Night is Invisible’s 1 is an inspiring success. Because there’s nothing I wanted to do more than drift off into a deep slumber while listening to it despite the fact it was mid-afternoon.
While many would argue that yes, indeed, some new-age music’s value lies in its ability to whisk you away from the land of the conscious to a world just below it, the journey there should at least be a memorable one. NIV’s latest release is an expedition in dullness and as forgettable an album as I’ve heard in quite some time.
Borrowing blatantly from Enigma’s “Return to Innocence,” NIV opens 1 with “Your Breath Is Mine,” a winding landscape of promising synthetic sound that jumps and thrums neatly, but ultimately disappoints with its inability to lead you anywhere refreshing. Incessantly looping synthesizers accompany an erratic drum kit before giving way to one of the few mechanized lyrics the album offers. With “Be quiet. Big boys don’t cry” breaking the verbal silence, you begin to appreciate the lack of words on the record. (I mean, come on. “Be quiet. Big boys don’t cry”? This is feeble writing even by new age standards.) The track then slowly fades out and closes without so much as a whimper.
And, unfortunately, that’s about as good as it gets with 1.
“Rosslyn,” the album’s second and perhaps worst track, begins a four-song losing streak so dreary and tedious, so musically bereft of ingenuity and risk, there’s really no way to differentiate between songs, they’re that lackluster. It’s not until “Mezza” that were snapped back from the edge of sleep (or insanity) and forced to care once again.
With a synthesizer reminiscent of that on Steve Miller’s “Jet Airliner” and a drum beat from his “Swingtown,” I suddenly found myself wishing I was listening to Miller’s greatest hits and not NIV. By the end of “Mezza” I’m humming the words “Oh, big ol’ jet airliner, Don’t carry me too far away,” a certain sign that things just aren’t going too well for the record.
Segueing into the sampled sound of rain and back on the road to ennui, “Burgundy” begins yet another four-song losing streak that will eventually close out 1 and put to bed (no pun intended) a very difficult album to enjoy. Save for parts of the first track and “Mezza” – and, maybe, the opening bells on “Aria” – there’s very little worth remembering on 1 and it ends basically the way it begins … boring and uneventful.
January 8th, 2006 at 11:06 am
wow harsh.