Brain One. The Domed One. Call him what you will. With a zillion
credits (he was a
founding member of Roxy Music, co-produced several U2 albums
and practically invented
ambient music, etc.) to his name, Brian Eno continues to push the
edge of music: what it
should be, look like and mean. Unfortunately, The Drop, his
newest piece of
discovery, probably should have been left undiscovered.
Why would a man who's had such a profound influence on
contemporary
popular music release such a disappointing collection? Only Eno
himself knows the
answer. Certainly he is the closest thing we've got to a modern
musical avatar, and Lord
knows it's not easy or fun criticizing him, let alone figuring out why
his latest creation
sucks.
At 17 tracks, the first third of The Drop is entirely forgettable.
The pieces are more
like raw sketches than finished songs. Things don't start to
resemble the fuzzy shadow of a
hint of something interesting until track 8. "Coasters," with a
subdued, creepy-crawly
rhythm, boasts a tangible sense of anxiety and dark apprehension.
Topping that is "Hazard," farther on down the album at track 12. A
thin yet penetrating
vignette, it holds within it the sensation that, just beyond your view,
a very real, very
mortal danger exists, reflected in the near terrifying detonation
sound that erupts every few
seconds. Enhanced by the roll of a snare drum, it's easy to
imagine the perils of life -- or,
more precisely, the moments of a life -- on a battlefield where,
either not too long ago or
not too long from now, something definitively bad occurred or will
occur.
After that, there's just not much to talk about. Eno can be
applauded for trying something
new; unfortunately, the result is, for the most part, not something
that many will want to
listen to more than once. Eno fanatics will want The Drop
just because it's the
fingerprint of the man himself, but the general listener familiar with
his work will no doubt
wonder why Eno didn't just drop it himself.