So here’s a confession. When I saw Pines on the B.G.M. list for new albums to review I was really excited because I was thinking it was The Pines and Jon or Isaac just got lazy and left off the The… I was wrong. It is indeed just Pines and they are a very different band than The Pines.
The Pines fit into that genre of modern blue grass / folk that is seemingly growing exponentially year over year and if it doesn’t slow down sometime soon banjo, washboard, and jug will be common place instruments in your average middle schoolers music class. There’s obviously nothing wrong with that, but this is America and unfounded hysteria about silly stuff is just what we do here.
This new EP, The Field Journal, has a surreal Sci-Fi quality to it and when I close my eyes it feels a bit like I’m walking through the world of Blade Runner and this is just a soundtrack to that alternate future. Full of synthetic sounds, static, and de-tuned slowly playing guitars this is the kind of stuff you’d want to listen to while doing mushrooms during an eclipse. Which, if you did, would probably illicit that feeling I mentioned two sentences ago.
Structurally the music on The Field Journal isn’t wild, complex, or deeply layered, nor does it carry the weight and verve of someone like a Pelican or Russian Circles… it’s kind of like Aphex Twin on quaaludes. That’s really the best I can come up with and while it’s not likely to be something that moves you it is great background music. I had it on while writing this review and several posts for my whiskey blog (The Whiskey Jug) and I barely even noticed it… and that’s my problem with it.
Good music moves you, makes you feel something, while great music is a distraction. It rips your attention away from anything else going on, if ever for a moment, and lets you know it’s there. Great music makes you feel, it also makes you think. Bad music is also a distraction, but for a very different reason. Whereas mediocre music just sits in the background minding it’s own business, allowing you to do the same, and that’s what Pines The Field Journal is. Mediocre background music that’s as inoffensive as it is uninteresting.
Pines’ The Field Journal will stay in my “study time” playlists where it will be played over and over and over through the years. It will be serving the utilitarian purpose of drowning out my surroundings so I can concentrate on something else and if you’re looking for something like that then this is the record you need to buy right now. If you’re looking for something deeper, more complex, or interesting then I suggest you look elsewhere, because The Field Journal won’t fit the bill.
Rating: 2.5/5