Unleash the Sky
YOUTH.

German quintet Unleash the Sky are back with their highly anticipated second album. A youthful release if one is to believe the name of the album. The press sheet is also mentioning four digit sales for the debut album and over a hundred club shows, and means that the band is combining their maturity with their youthful enthusiasm. That sounds more exciting than the album cover makes it appear, that much is certain. But four digit sales? The music business clearly isn’t what it once was; in the eighties I think that five digit sales was a mind success. But times change and that happens in a both positive and negative way so no reason to complain, lets instead look at what these guys have to offer.

It is music within the alternative realm, post-metal or post-hardcore I believe is the term commonly used with bands of this genre or style. It is fairly heavy with some hardcore influences but also very melodic and catchy, driven around strong hooks and choruses with a good singer and modern production. One can describe it as a well made production but maybe not a particularly original one, one can argue that it sounds a lot like much other things we have heard within this genre. All ten tracks of the album confirms that view and the variation isn’t that big either, but as the album (discounting the two acoustic bonus tracks) is only 35 minutes long it should keep a listener interested for the entire duration.

Overall I think this is a pretty good album, it may not have that much longevity though as I felt pretty done with the album after two times playing it. Still, fans of the band and genre probably see it a little different and as I stated before the production is solid and the performances good – the songs are good as well. The problem is that the album fails to make any lasting impression and to stand out compared with the rest of the albums within the genre. It is another one of those good but pretty forgetful albums that we tend to get these days.

It is difficult to stand out in music today, very few succeed and this band isn’t one of those. They are not bad and as stated before but they are not fantastic either. None of the songs really stand out, the acoustic bonus tracks are not as good as the rest of the tracks but as they are ending the album it is easy to skip them. So in the end I think we can conclude that this is a pretty decent album but there are many better albums in this genre.

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