You know when you come across something that has the potential to be something special but then one little thing throws a spanner in the works and results in it being a bit of a letdown? Well, the debut album from blanket, Our Brief Encounters is exactly that.
On a musical level, the piece is absolutely gorgeous. The instrumentation is beautifully delivered, and absolutely brimming with emotion as the piece effortlessly glides from one section to the next. Meanwhile the vocal line, which is very sparse and only features a handful of times in the music, is gentle and smooth, and is a very controlled performance that adds a lot to the music despite it being rather minimalistic – less is definitely more here, and blanket have used this to their advantage.
However – and this is a very big however – the spoken sections that feature on the album, particularly the longer one in second track Tethered just sound so awkward and somewhat cringeworthy, and unfortunately it’s a bit of a dealbreaker. It’s difficult to immerse yourself in the music and follow the concept when you want to skip those awkward-sounding sections by.
It’s a shame because aside from that, it’s a decent album with a lot of potential for the band to grow. So regardless of this album not hitting the spot for me at least, I’ll still be watching blanket with interest to see where they go from here.
6/10
