Ben Rath is an experimental ambient multi-instrumentalist currently based in Manchester, UK, and 'Resolve' is his third album on the label. I've never heard his previous works so no idea what to expect here. Title track ("Resolve") comes in two parts - Part 1 is nice echo-plucky moving ambient with a soft noise chaser, while Part 2 begins with big cloudy pads and sustained bass that morphs back into some of the plinky-plucky sounds (sans noise) of Part 1 before mellowing out into complete ambient pad drone. "Man the Barricades" may have a title alluding to keeping something out, but the sound is all crystalline chaos as it sounds like something got in and is running amok. I'm not sure "Dreams of a Liveable Future" is the future I'd be dreaming of, but in Ben's mind these piercing drones must be okey-dokey. "On the Eve of the Strike" has tinkling sounds over low, melodic drone pads and sustained bass, but when the tinkling goes away, is the Strike still on? The title "Robber Barons" seems ominous enough, and the harrowing, forceful drone certainly lives up to it. It is almost like dark ambient noise completely shattering any previous placidity. This track does not let up until the very end!

What I would like to know, is who exactly is in the "Committee of Future Ghosts"; what their agenda is, and how they intend to carry it out. This track provides scant clues to their arcane and oblique plots, but you'll have a lot of fun trying to figure it out. "Memorial" is a rather sad ambient drone piece and the distortion in it did not make me love it. "Forests on Fire" has a similar sort of distortion so no love on that one either. "World Grief" comes in two parts, the first, a thick morass that turns caustic by the end, and the second, a not as thick but more piercing version with a twist- adding echoed synth phrases and bass stabs nearly halfway through. The echoes fade but the stabbing continues. "Truth and Reconciliation" showed promise with its mysterious wavering bubbly synth and dark cloudy pads that build. And no distortion, thankfully. Nice way to go out.

I was not enthralled with this album, feeling like it was trying to be too many things - ambient, gray ambient, dark ambient, noise, experimental electronic, etc. and I think other listeners may end up coming to the same conclusion. Truth be told, this was not one of the easier ones to review, and I will probably never listen to it again. Comes in the usual handmade limited edition of 200.