Worriedaboutsatan - Arrivals

It’s hard just to know what to make of ambient noisescapes. The beat isn’t strong enough to actually dance to it and it often just meanders along, flowing this way and that. Yet it’s too active to be mere musak, simply aural decoration. But that’s where the beauty lies as it falls between the two, neither one thing nor the other and so exponents can marry the two, when its done well. WAS aren’t without merit and 'Arrivals 'is pleasant enough but the terrain of ambient dance/chill out has been comprehensively charted before years ago by the likes of Brian Eno and later on the likes of the Orb and the Aphex Twin as well as many others and Worriedaboutsatan simply add nothing new. It follows in the footsteps of others who pioneered the way. That’s not to say that what the duo do is second rate. Far from it, most of 'Arrivals' draws the listener in to a post-club world of early morning, bleary-eyed light. The long journey home through empty streets; the come down as the drugs wear off. 'Arrivals' though just ends up blurring into one whole – or perhaps that’s the point. Tracks don’t have an individual characteristic and are forgotten the minute they’re over. Only the title track manages to carve an identity for itself and has a darker edge to it. It wouldn’t be out of place on Aphex Twin’s 'Selected Ambient Works Vol II', but it is not half as scary. Many years ago I wrote a review of an album by the Insides for a national publication and used the space to attack certain ambient dance acts for producing wallpaper music for a blitzed/blissed out generation who took no interest in what was going on in the world around them. Not much seems to have changed. While ever-so right on bands throttling the listener into submission are just as irritating, Worriedaboutsatan seem to have failed to have noticed that the country is in the grip of a deep recession and are governed by an administration that are too busy putting their snouts in the trough of public finances to get around to solving the deep-rooted problems.

Track Listing:-

1 One Down
2 Evil Dogs
4 I Am A Crooked Man
5 Pissing About
6 ..
7 History Is Made At Night
8 You're In My Thoughts
9 ...
10 All Things But You Are Silent
11 Arrivals