The first song You went so silent has at first a strong atmospheric character, introducing the album soft and clammed. It starts off with clean vocals supported by a shy piano, gaining the power it needs, and at its peak it falls apart into black grief and despair, pure misery, into emotional void. While the sound first shimmers weak, creeps around in the dark, where every tone dies away, it collapses brutally in the second part, turning dark and intense. Black vocals set in with strong distorted guitars and in the background emotes the afterglow of the first calmer theme, now played by a stretched high pitched guitar. The tension stays through the complete track and only dies away towards the end and returns back to the first theme, where only a piano remains, finishing the song alone.
Two different vocalists participate at this album, what leads to them alternating between high pitched clean vocals and black, cloudy vocals. When the dark vocals start off, Clouds takes you to a gloomy place, where the air is hard to breath, the sun never seems to shine. Where darkness oppresses you, the despair nags on your heart and soul. The beginning of the blackened vocals is a relief, a cry descending from an aching heart . The tension breaks as soon as the sound changes from deep sorrow to utter despair, but exactly this moment, where everything falls apart, picks up Clouds, focusing only on its misery, the perceived emptiness. They slow it down, disclosing its intestines, presenting us the devastation this feeling conserves and Clouds even has the aptitude to make you experience this feeling. The tension that has been dammed up, gets released, the heart cries, reveals the appearance of this moment where only emptiness seems to be dominating, where nothing seems to matter, where everything seems lost.
This music is best served with a bottle of vodka and some alone time at home. Their music is miserable and also beautiful at the same time, melodic and fluent. It culminates in misery, where the depression feels good, like a cry, the long expected and finally arrived sob. Clouds instrumental composition reminds me from What Mad Universe. It is also particular cinematic, with an strong density, where mainly the guitar has a melodic character on a grinding drum- and bass-ground. While Clouds use vocals during these intense parts, to add more a more despairing character, the devastation of a person confronted by the loss of someone close , punctuating the emotions felt right at its realization.
Words: Luis Luethi
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