Cloudscape
Voice of Reason

Swedish power progressive metallers Cloudscape are back with their fifth album and it follows a rather long gap since the latest album that was released in 2012 and was reviewed by us who were not entirely convinced by that one. Since then the band has toured successfully and many other things have happened so the question is whether or not this Swedish band can brighten our time a little bit. The artwork is not as nice as the one on the predecessor but rather nice nevertheless.

Progressive power metal is what it is about when you play an album by Cloudscape, great sound and production and pretty good vocalist are some of the features a listener notices immediately. The album’s variation is pretty good, something that of course is rather typical of the genre and speaking of typical of the genre you can say the same about the music as it offers nothing that we haven’t heard before. Fans of the band will recognise their heroes as this sound very much like what we heard last time around. And the album’s playing time is not too long either; I doubt that any listener will grow tired of it before the end of the last song.

Good album, that is what I think about this – not fantastic or amazing, just good album. Solid effort is another thing you can say and I am sure that fans will be amazed or impressed by this album but the question is if anyone but the fans will really fall in love with this album. I didn’t, I think it is good but I am also finished with it now and doubt that I will ever pick it up again now that the review is finished.

All the tracks are solid, but the only standout is the ending track In Silence We Scream that is a really strong and impressive nine-minute epic. In the end though, epics aside, I find it difficult to get really excited by this album, it is too much of what we have already heard before and that is not just a problem of these guys but a general problem of the music scene today. Fans of the band and fans of this kind of music are recommended to check this album out as you might find that you like it, it is a lovely cloudscape but probably one that blows away fairly quickly.

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