{"id":471,"date":"2026-03-06T10:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T00:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ambientden.com\/?p=471"},"modified":"2026-03-06T10:56:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T00:56:14","slug":"2025-10-25-black-magazine-online-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ambientden.com\/?p=471","title":{"rendered":"2025-10-25 &#8211; Black Magazine Online (Review)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-black-onlinemagazin wp-block-embed-black-onlinemagazin\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"L6UbT1oVBQ\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blackmagazin.com\/?p=28208\">AMBIENT DEN \u2013 Ambient Den<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8222;AMBIENT DEN \u2013 Ambient Den&#8220; &#8211; BLACK Onlinemagazin\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blackmagazin.com\/?p=28208&#038;embed=true#?secret=L6UbT1oVBQ\" data-secret=\"L6UbT1oVBQ\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Translation:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This isn&#8217;t about ambient music, despite what the band name might suggest, but rather progressive art rock, or perhaps even neo-prog versus high-quality space rock. The six tracks from the Australians, led by mastermind and singer Ben Craven, who has previously produced several solo albums in a similar style, are sonically situated somewhere between melodic, symphonic rock-influenced artists like Pink Floyd, Pendragon, Mike Oldfield, RPWL, Deep Imagination, Marathon, and David Gilmour + Roger Waters solo. Half of the tracks are, incidentally, entirely instrumental.<br>BEN always describes his music as &#8220;Cinematic Progressive Rock Singer Songwriter,&#8221; and the band name is a jumbled collection of the members&#8217; first names\u2014I&#8217;ve never heard that before. TIM BENNETS on the opulent keys and DEAN POVEY on drums, along with the master himself on the Floydian guitars, create those typical, catchy &#8220;walls of sound&#8221; right from the first notes. The concept album revolves around science fiction themes. It deals with humanity&#8217;s search for a new home somewhere in space, which humanity, as we know it, will ultimately destroy. The album was also recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic. For me, the fantastic song &#8220;For All Mankind&#8221; stands out in particular; after repeated listens, it develops a real earworm quality. BEN&#8217;s superb guitar work on &#8220;Terraforming,&#8221; the longest track at almost 17 minutes, is also captivating. The total playing time of this magnificent album, which only truly won me over after several listens in a row, is a respectable 67 minutes. The finale, &#8220;Future History Part 2,&#8221; even takes a slightly funky turn, once again showcasing the versatility of Ben and his musical collaborators. I&#8217;m really hoping to experience this highly creative and energetic group live sometime soon; with such monumental sounds, it could be well worth it. (S. Erichsen)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Original:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hier geht es mal nicht um Ambient, obwohl der Bandname das suggeriert, sondern eher um progressiven Artrock oder meinetwegen auch um Neoprog versus Spacerock der besseren Sorte. Die 6 Tracks der Australier um Mastermind, S\u00e4nger BEN CRAVEN, der bisher einige Soloalben im gleichen Sound Style produziert hatte, liegen jedenfalls Klangtechnisch zwischen melodischen, Symphonic Rock angehauchten K\u00fcnstlern wie letztere PINK FLOYD, PENDRAGON, MIKE OLDFIELD, RPWL, DEEP IMAGINATION, MARATHON, DAVID GILMOUR + ROGER WATERS Solo und die H\u00e4lfte der Tracks ist \u00fcbrigens sowieso passend instrumental gehalten. BEN bezeichnet seine Musik auch immer als \u201eCinematic Progressive Rock Singer Songwriter\u201c und der Bandname resultiert aus den durcheinander gew\u00fcrfelten Vornamen der Gruppenmitglieder, das habe ich so auch noch nicht geh\u00f6rt. TIM BENNETS an den opulenten Keys und DEAN POVEY an den Drums, sowie der Meister \u201eHimself an den \u201efloydigen Gitarren erzeugen schon bei den ersten Kl\u00e4ngen diese so typischen, eng\u00e4ngigen \u201eWall of Sound\u201c und das Konzeptalbum dreht sich Thementechnisch um Science Fiction. Im Kontext geht es um die menschliche Suche nach einer neuen Bleibe irgendwo im All, den die Menschheit, wie wir sie halt kennen, im Endeffekt wohl auch zerst\u00f6ren wird. Die Platte entstand au\u00dferdem auch zu Corona Zeiten. F\u00fcr mich sticht vor allem der fantastische Song \u201eFor All Mankind\u201c hervor, der nach mehrmaligen H\u00f6ren so etwas wie Ohrwurm-Charakter entwickelt, zudem begeistert die famose Gitarrenarbeit von BEN bei \u201eTerraforming\u201c, dem l\u00e4ngsten Song mit fast 17 Minuten. Die Gesamtspielzeit der gro\u00dfartigen Scheibe, die mich aber erst nach mehrmaligen H\u00f6ren am St\u00fcck \u00fcberzeugt hat, verbleibt bei guten 67 Minuten. Im Finale \u201eFuture History Part 2\u201c geht es dann sogar nochmal etwas funky zu, das zeigt wieder einmal die ganze Vielfalt von BEN und seinen musikalischen Mitstreitern. Dann hoffe ich mal, die sehr kreative und spielfreudige Truppe irgendwo Live zu erleben, das k\u00f6nnte sich bei den Monumentalkl\u00e4ngen wirklich lohnen. (S.Erichsen)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Translation: This isn&#8217;t about ambient music, despite what the band name might suggest, but rather progressive art rock, or perhaps even neo-prog versus high-quality space rock. The six tracks from the Australians, led by mastermind and singer Ben Craven, who has previously produced several solo albums in a similar style, are sonically situated somewhere between&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ambientden.com\/?p=471\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">2025-10-25 &#8211; Black Magazine Online (Review)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":472,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ambientden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ambientden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ambientden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ambientden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ambientden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ambientden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":473,"href":"https:\/\/www.ambientden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions\/473"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ambientden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ambientden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ambientden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ambientden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}