Baths: "Obsidian"

Electronic puppeteer Will Wiesenfeld has released Baths’ second album, Obsidian, the follow-up to 2010’s debut album, Cerulean. From the start, the album takes on a dark tone, in sound and appearance. The song titles collectively are a bit morbid, with titles like “Worsening,” and “No Past Lives.” “Miasma Sky,” the first track Wiesenfeld released from Obsidian, is masked with pop-like beats and falsettos, but is layered with lyrics like “Miasma sky, would you swallow me alive?” The track trails off with piano and the sound of rain, leaving the listener to think the song did indeed swallow him alive.

However, the following song, “Ironworks,” is less heavy on the ears and the mind. It opens with a flood of piano leading into a sputtering of beats accompanied by Wiesenfeld’s soft falsetto. The track then takes a step down to just vocals and piano, and back again. The layering affect is not lost, and is quite a serene mixture.

By the middle of the album, the overwhelming sense of death and decay put me off. You can only mask the blatant lyrics so much by computer generated sounds before it becomes too much. Wiesenfeld suffered a spell with E Coli, perhaps prompting some of the depressing content. In this case, I guess he has a bit of an excuse for producing an album that would go in the “Dude-we-get-it-you’re-depressed” section of a record store. Nonetheless, it’s a good effort from Mr. Wiesenfeld, but I’m not a fan.