It should have come as no surprise to me that after reading Darkbloom‘s hyperbolic reviews greatly praising Grimes and condemning d’Eon in comparison that d’Eon’s half would actually be superior. Logically, Grimes is far more popular than d’Eon, people will find this through her, the people who bother to do so will generally be big Grimes fans, and these same people will like just about anything she modulates her cute voice onto.

Visions was one of my favorite albums of 2012, but it’s leaps and bounds ahead of Grimes’s prior work which sound like practice sessions for the main theatrical album. Darkbloom is another piece of that Visions blend but not fully realized without its missing parts. These are easily Grimes’ most ambient songs, but while Visions was one of the best examples of an album maintaining an ambient atmosphere while being heavily detailed instead of sparse, Darkbloom lacks those merits. It’s lazy ambient. Boring. The stellar “Vanessa” got my hopes up, and you should absolutely grab it and nothing else lest you suffer the same fate. Or not if you’re one of those people in the first paragraph I mentioned.

This is my first time hearing d’Eon but he gets a beautiful, mystic sound that envelops instead of glides like Grimes’, and although he doesn’t mix the ambient and the pop he at least achieves a dynamic with some glassy techno breakdowns during his songs. I especially like the chimes in “Thousand Mile Touch,” but the closer “Transparency” is certainly my favorite on his side. I’ll definitely check out an album or two in the future.

So, is this skippable? Uh, well… mostly?