If you've ever bought a Harold Budd or Brian Eno disc -- and you really should -- then you can probably skip this review and, by inference, this CD. Face The Robot is Ousia's second release, and all it really shows is that there hasn't been a great deal of development from their first disc, which was described in some quarters as being "snowbient", although it could be argued that "boring" is possibly a more apt term. It certainly is here.

The problem with Ousia's music is that it sounds -- regardless of the effort that went into making it -- a bit ambient-by-numbers. Whereas some artists might mix it up a bit, adding more real-sounding drums to the mix or whatever, Ousia play it safe in the whole uncertain-tone kind of way: keys dominate the soundfield, ramping up and down, adding a bit of tremolo here and there for effect. "Binary Sort" is the best example of what's going wrong: it's a perfectly serviceable tune, with bits of delayed/effected organ work -- but "perfectly serviceable" is what one expects from a plumber, not a bunch of musicians. The tunes don't especially flow well, either, thereby robbing the album of the possibility of success through unity, like Eno's Apollo disc. No longform soundscaping + not a great deal of originality = next, please.

The highlight of the album, "In Absence", features some tones that would seem more at home on an Eighty Mile Beach disc; low, almost Bang On A Can-styled bass clarinet-sounding instruments creep through the song's structure. Shards of echoed distortion rise over the mix, creating a rather menacing, steelworks-by-night kind of atmosphere. Still, there's something here that gives cause for pause: despite the best of intentions, this sounds like incidental music from The X-Files...which, while laudable in the TV world, isn't really what you're looking for in a disc you play at home, is it?

Unfortunately, for all the Terminator-styled menace that Face The Robot evokes, what Ousia really deliver is the equivalent of a robotic Amway salesman. It's good stuff, but it's relentlessly dull -- and that's what relegates the group's second disc to the world of Eno wannabes. A shame.