Supraliminal

For such a rigidly structured genre, drum n bass can be surprisingly versatile, but it's Bensley's distinctive attention to sound design that props up Supraliminal.

This attention is perhaps at its highest clarity in the opening movement of the record - "DEPTH CHARGE", as a short, attentive, springy first tune, and "Glowing In The Dark", as the sober vocal-driven followup. With these two tracks to front the album, it would not be amiss to feel as if Supraliminal is set to be Bensley in full flow. 

Indeed, Bensley's success in the drum n bass scene is very much thanks to his distinguishable style. The Canadian producer has a particular penchant for lush, glassy synths over snappy breaks, acknowledging pop but always staying on the rim of its snowglobe. There's certainly a dancefloor sensibility imbued in the leads he chooses, but there's a dirtier jump-up undertone in their energy, and yet Bensley doesn't conform to etiher aesthetic. Fortunately, his approach to songwriting is all his own. It's crystal-clear in the first two tracks, where he exhibits fine control over the pace of those five minutes of runtime, meticulously firing off synths and altering the structure of the tracks to his whim - the yearning choral elements of "DEPTH CHARGE" are an atmospheric accompaniment that the otherwise gimmicky sound design benefits greatly from, whilst Gracie Van Brunt pitches in a clean vocal over a shifting dancefloor-esque groove on "Glowing In The Dark".

The momentum doesn't quite translate to the rest of the record. Bensley has a fantastic style, but it never truly comes to fruition again through the remainder of the record. Sometimes it's overwhelmed by a brasher idea, like in "Samurai", or perhaps it's simply just not brought out enough - intermittently there'll be a rather empty cut or two - to show its colours.

But it remains, of course. Supraliminal is nothing if not a statement of style, maybe not to the extent that the rest of his discography proves to be, but to a reasonable extent nonetheless. As for the technical side of the record, Bensley ensures it remains polished and proper, maintaining the mixdowns and closely monitoring the sound design, stripping it back if it becomes too much. Clean, surely. Sanitised? Perhaps.

There's definitely a sense that Supraliminal, for all its stylistic merit, is indeed a little oversanitised. The worst offender is, likely, the somewhat formulaic approach to songwriting that begins to seep in. To be fair, the so-called formula is present from the start, but the realisation that it persists seeps in later. Nearly every track opens with a female vocal, gradually builds to some form of emotional (or, otherwise, a rave-friendly) climax, and then kicks into Bensley's drum n bass. Now this hurts the record. The prevalence of such a formula is not complete, however, and in fact there are some refreshingly creative cuts, most notably the entertaining telephone sampling of "1-800-BEN-SLEY" that chops up its ideas and reshapes itself using its own elements. Nevertheless it is noticeable.

Meanwhile, though something of a mood swing is present somewhere in the album, it doesn't ever truly evolve into a wider cohesiveness. Truth to be told, Supraliminal largely shirks its throughline despite seeming poised to bounce tracks off each other, instead choosing to rely entirely on its stylistics. Often, like in the opening sequence, this is to its strength; equally as often, it is a constraint the album cannot surpass, even as the track titles begin to break down typographically through "H e i r l o o m" or "burning_memories".

Drum n bass is in desperate need of another breakout record. It is unfortunate that Bensley's Supraliminal will not be that breakout record, but it avoids being the unappealing commercial record that seems to be plagueing the genre at present. Bensley, it seems, looks to maintain a sound of his own, and that is a highly respectable thing artistically, but at times Supraliminal would certainly benefit from pushing the envelope a little more.

Listen on Spotify here.