At its most banal, A Prayer to False Gods sounds like the jarring hum of unshielded stereo wire. But when bvdub (San Francisco disc jockey Brock Van Wey's nom de guerre) hits his stride, the result is nothing short of sublime. Luckily, there are less instances of the former than the latter.

Dropping the atmospherics and field noises inherent to much of contemporary ambient music, Van Wey instead opts for a pu pu platter of loops, drone and noise that affords a surprisingly engaging experience. The daunting seventy-plus minute runtime is stretched even further by an unhurried pacing which, although at times quite trying, allows his themes to develop organically, deliberately.

The five tracks all lie between ten and twenty minutes, given adequate room to move around. It is perhaps this ample gestation period to which False Gods owes much of its success - twelve six minute tracks would take the same amount of time, but the stifled results would likely be monochromatic and dull. Instead, the sounds bend and warp, mutating ever so subtly, the gap between points A and B wide enough to be justified, yet slight enough to feel natural. The rather spartan title track (which doubles as opener) provides an apt example of this, as does the swelling closer "When You Realized It Was All a Lie."

Van Wey's background in deep techno and IDM is also omnipresent, casting its subtle shadow upon each piece. It is most immediately apparent on "The Joy of Loneliness," the album's undeniable highlight that bears a vague resemblance to the minimal house of Ricardo Villalobos.

What drags False Gods down - what precludes the disc from ever achieving a "classic" status - are those aforementioned banalities. "The Danger of Happiness" grates and distracts, its first nine minutes dominated by a shrill static drone. The local schoolchildren of South Park, Colorado spent the better portion of a weekend trying to pin down the mythical "brown note," rumored to induce involuntary bowel movement in those who hear it (for those of you keeping track at home, it is 92 cents below the lowest octave of E-flat). It would seem, then, that Brock Van Wey has discovered an analogous "suicide note," one which instills in me a strong urge to take a long walk off of the St. Petersburg Pier, or at the very least unplug my headphones. Additionally, some of the loops on other tracks render themselves redundant, and "Losing at Your Own Game" might be just a minute too long for its own good.

This isn't the ambience of elevator musical ancestry - no, bvdub strays too far into Burning Star Core's territory to suit your typical dinner party. Nor is it the kin of Music for Airports. By my estimation this album in fact fails Brian Eno's definition of good ambient music: it does not engage on multiple levels, but rather demands active attention from the listener, lest its vibrato lull you into hypnotic theta waves. However, regardless of classical merits, A Prayer to False Gods is competent, challenging, and varied, a worthy new addition to the ambient canon.

-Andy Kissner