CRIMSON SKIES

Have you noticed that Sweden is the land of progressive music especially during the 90's and 00's era? There are so many bands coming out from this land including Cloudscape, Wolverine, The Flower Kings, Pain of Salvation and so many more. Cloudscape is another band in the vein of heavy side of progressive music. From the outside I would consider that the music of Cloudscape is not really progressive, there are not so many curved lines in terms of composition and structure. In terms of performance, they are good musicians who know how to cook a good music.

The opening track "Shapeshifter" how good and powerful their composition is. It starts with pulsating keyboard followed with the blast of drums, bass, and guitar to accompany vocal. The guitar solo is stunning especially when it's combined with keyboards at the back. "Shadowland" sounds to me like having a Moslem Prayer's call "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) at the start of the track in loop sound, followed with metal music. "And Then the Rain..." calms down the music with a medium tempo opening / intro part featuring nice guitar work and riffs that accompany vocal. There are not many breaks or changes in mood of this track, similar with the first two tracks.

The next two tracks "Take the Blame" and "The Last Breath" are in the similar vein. But when it reaches track 6 "Psychic Imbalance" it surprises me as the opening part is ambient psychedelic followed with music with fast tempo in the vein of progressive metal. "Hope" represents the symphonic exploration of the band without sacrificing their main competence as progressive metal expert. The symphonic nuance flows to the next track through wonderful opening part "Breach In My Sanity".

Do not expect something truly progressive from this album even though this is a good album by Cloudscape. Fans of Evergrey, Royal Hunt

Cloudscape is progressive metal band hailing from Sweden, reaching to the second album in 2006 named Crimson skies. I was pleasently surprised about their music and their potential. Solid progressive metal who relies more on vocal arrangements and guitar chops then on keybords escapades like other bands. Anyway the kybords doesn't have an dimportant role on this album and in entire concept but brings a certain solid and catchy atmosphere to the whole album. Some parts are simply amazing like Shapeshifter , Shadowland or Psychic Imbalance, excellent song writting and special musicianship allover, really nice. The guitar done some fantastic chops on some pieces with nice breaks and great solos, is some passages is almost power metal but very well played, remind me of Suspyre for ex or Minwarp Chamber in compositional style, but also the vocal duties held by Micael Andersson are great. He is also a member of another progressive metal (who I've reviewed in the nearly past) from Switzerland named Silent Memorial. The vocal parts are fantastic, very good vocalist with impressive range, very distinctiv tone and some moments on this album are simply amazing. Overall a good album, that is for sure, but my taste in progressive metal needs more keybords interluded with the rest, a thing that happens only on some pieces and even there sporatdicaly. 3 stars for sure, a good band with potential and with solid songwritting. Needed to be checked more often by prog metal litners.