Clouds – Despãrţire
Release Date: 14th October 2021
Label: Self Release
Bandcamp
Genre: Atmospheric Doom, Death Metal, Funeral Doom.
FFO: Shape Of Despair, Saturnus, Doom:VS, My Dying Bride, Anathema, November’s Doom.
Review By: Martha Skourteli
There are some bands that have charisma. Usually created by the types of musicians that are too talented and inspired. When they put them together with their skills in the form of art, the outcome is just superb. Bands such as My Dying Bride and Anathema, to name a couple, have built a long history already. Another name without such a long history, but with a significant presence in the doom metal scene, and having the above characteristics, is Clouds.
Clouds started in 2013 as an international project including big names from well known bands. But the wide acceptance by the audience was not to ignore, so the project was transformed to a band and here we are in 2021 with their 6th full length album Despãrţire, being self released on the 14th of October.
The mastermind behind Clouds, Daniel Neagoe, a multi instrumentalist, songwriter, known for his participation in Shape Of Despair (plus an endless list of bands) as well as his other spiritual child, Eye Of Solitude, has written most of the lyrics and music. In this new trip he’s accompanied by two huge names in the field, Aaron Stainthorpe (My Dying Bride) and Mick Moss (Antimatter), who have contributed with the lyrics and their beautiful, warm voices on 2 songs. The music for In Both Our World The Pain Is Real and The Door We Never Opened is composed by guitarist Mihai Dinuta. Clouds now has 7 members after the recent additions of Andrei Oltean in windpipes/traditional woodwinds and Alex Gheorghe as a second guitarist.
Despãrţire comes with 7 songs, totaling to a bit under an hour, that are the ultimate hymns for the brokenhearted. They’re all flooded with an excessive amount of emotion that drags the listener through an immense field of sensitivity. Let’s just say that even if you have never shed a tear and you can always keep yourself together in difficult situations, listening to this album will probably break you to your knees.
The music is the clearest form of atmospheric doom death metal and the enrichment with violin, piano and wind instruments is paving the best ground to sculpt songs that whisper in our soul the words that unlock and reveal the things we wish to hide and forget. The guitars of course are dressing each song in melodies that can make people feel overwhelmed, while the solos are made to remember just by listening once. You press play, you listen and the guitar solos (together with the violin tunes) are carved on your brain cells instantly and permanently.
One thing I notice in some bands, where the singer is also the main songwriter, is the way the songs are sung. They’re not just sung, but actually performed with all the dramatization that a voice can put in them. In Clouds’ case, Daniel sounds like he puts his everything while singing, so the possibility for the listener to miss the feeling of each song is just not there. He moves from bottomless roaring to deep heartfelt clean singing to whispering phrases to narrating parts, doing each one and all of them in the most artistic way.
Needless to say that the vocals of Aaron Stainthorpe for In Both Our Worlds The Pain Is Real and Mick Moss in This Heart, A Coffin are what everybody would expect from them, i.e. “too good” is just a mere modest expression.
Since I discovered Clouds (it was really only about 3 years ago) I must admit that they haven’t disappointed me once! All of their albums that I dug up and the ones that were released after, are in my category of music in which I don’t skip songs when I’m listening. They have the right amount of spells that they put on you and then easily and quietly drag you in their world of pain, loss and sadness where it’s more than sure that you will find painted images of your life and experiences as well as pieces of yourself laying around. These people are like spiders! Dare to get close to their web of melodies and you’ll end up voluntarily remaining tied to this web.
I believe it’s not an exaggeration to say that they’re becoming the Kings of pain and I want to hope that they’ll keep creating music like this uncontrollably.
Eight years after their first breath, they keep maturing like a very good wine that becomes better by the minute. Every new album is another stone in their own temple of sorrow that brings more shattered people closer together for a pilgrimage.
(5 / 5)
