Album Review: Lucianblomkamp - Bad Faith

In his follow up to 2014's Post-Nature, Melbourne producer Lucianblomkamp develops, enhances and improves upon all of his strengths, while cutting ties with elements from his debut that were clunky or awkward on this stellar second LP Bad Faith.

The 12-track opus is conceptually binding, possessing the flow and execution of the soundtrack to a feature film, where the weight of the would-be imagery falls entirely on the production skills of Blomkamp. Bad Faith is as atmospheric, moody and engaging as the title would suggest. Jagged beats and washes of synths characterise early track Eleven & 22, and intelligent instrumental samples such as the gentle guitar strings polarise in later track Copy Of A Copy.

Bad Faith is a much more mature expansion of the conceptual world founded in Post-Nature. The record elicits a strong emotional response from the listener as each new track erases the memory of the previous from your mind, whether with the simplistic minimalism of album closer Eternal, or the dissonant machinated cognitions of opener Decay. It's this effect that will have you turning the album back to the beginning upon conclusion.