Album Review: It’s Immaterial // Black Marble

The introduction to It’s Immaterial, ‘Interdiction’, is starkly different from any other song on the record. It is 1:11 long. It begins with a muted, arpeggiated, percussive synth line, which gets filtered and warped throughout the song at random. This synth line bends, squeaks, and is interrupted in the back end of the track by caustic screams, which twist along with the lead melody. It’s a disorienting way to start an album. In less capable hands, it would be a soundscape concept gone awry. Within the context of It’s Immaterial, however, Black Marble uses it as a sort of palate cleanser, washing out any preexisting notions one would bring to the album. And the album is all the better for it.

It’s Immaterial is the first album Black Marble has produced since the departure of founding member Ty Kube, effectively making Black Marble the solo outfit of Chris Stewart. While this album is just as indebted to dream pop and Peter Hook-esque post-punk as their last album, 2012’s A Different Arrangement, Stewart comes at this sound more directly with Kube’s departure. The core elements of their sound still exist on this record, but they are more refined, better mixed, and communicate the sonic ideas better. Their discography thrives on simple synth melodies that move between the background and foreground of each song, propelling the track forward. Here, these melodies are more distinct, and play a vital role in carrying the sound of the album. This works to Black Marble’s advantage, especially on songs like ‘A Million Billion Stars’, where the whole of the track is held up by these synth leads.

The true start of the album, ‘Iron Lung’, begins with a simple guitar riff that has come to signify the brand of lo-fi synthwave Black Marble produces. Like much of their back catalogue, it is straight-forward structurally, carried by a prominent bass and synth bars that drop in to accentuate the heavily filtered vocals. This has been their wave throughout their existence, but here their formula is less tiring and more fulfilling. Moments like ‘Woods’ and ‘Missing Sibling’ hone this sound, opening the songs up to fill more space. Like their previous work, the songs often move at a brisk pace, and Stewart’s vocals are still deeply compressed and ethereal. The lyrics come soaked as ever in melancholy, as Stewart lustfully yearns about ‘miss[ing] your sun” and ‘be[ing] the last known survivor”.

Like their last album, as well, the album’s dark and unwavering tone can become redundant towards the end of the album. Is ‘Self Guided Tours’ necessary to the flow of the album when it’s really just a less-thematic play of ‘Woods’? ‘Colleen’ exists as an ending to the album purely due to it’s outro, which itself is just an extension of the instrumental. While both songs stand decently well on their own, in the context of the album they seem like rehashes of better written songs from earlier in the album. Additionally, like on A Different Arrangement, Stewart’s vocals can become buried beneath the myriad of effects placed upon them, blurring the singing at points to melodic air, absent of any distinguishable words. This blurring begets the ambient atmosphere already prominent on the record, but can deter from the real and effecting music Black Marble has made here. This is unfortunate, because this album is the clearest in both intent and execution Black Marble has been in the band’s 5 year history.

The songs on It’s Immaterial, like the rest of Black Marble’s songs, straddle the line between morose as a coping mechanism and gloom for the sake of gloom. What came to mixed results with A Different Arrangement, however, plays more often than not here as a genuine experience. The improvements Black Marble have made upon their sound still leave elements to be desired, but are valuable additions nonetheless. It’s Immaterial fits snugly into the band’s short series of projects, but shows Black Marble is still a forerunner in the synthwave genre with room to grow.

Words by Sebastian Campbell