TIAMAT - Clouds

Clouds FORMAT: CD
REALEASE DATE: 01.09.1992
RECORD COMPANY: Century Media
 
9.0
METALFAN RATING:
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
 
9.1
USERS RATING: 29 votes

Top 1992: #7
Tiamat more
LINE UP:
Johan Edlund - voce, chitara;
Thomas Petersson - chitara;
Johnny Hagel - bas;
Kenneth Roos - clape;
Niklas Ekstrand - tobe
TRACKLIST:

01. In A Dream02. Clouds03. Smell Of Incense04. A Caress Of Stars05. The Sleeping Beauty06. Forever Burning Flame07. The Scapegoat08. Undressed
If the luck of the draw gave this album to me, it means that fate wanted me to tell you a few things from when I was younger.
I don’t know how your first time was (now don’t think of naughty stuff), but I started nice and easy with the metals, I started with Wind of Change. And at that time, when I was a total Scorpions fan and was desperate that I was missing from their discography some live record from 77, I got to hear Tiamat for the first time. At Radio Nova22, Lenti Chiriac was presenting his Iron Top and Hard'n'Heavy Top. I was writing for the H'n'h top: to Lenti C. , I would write on the envelope, and my father would laugh at me "you writing again to that Lent guy?", but I didn’t pay him any attention and would tremble with anticipation in front of the radio waiting for the answers to letters. But, let’s not forget what I was going on about, curiosity (for I’ve been curious ever since I was little) I would listen to the Iron Top too, and the hour of heavy and very heavy metals that came next, and this is how I heard for the same time, among all the Mortification, Sarcofago, Toranaga, Sacred Reich and other curiosities, Tiamat - In a Dream. I didn’t resonate with all this heavy stuff at the time, but my mind was a sponge and would absorb anything without me noticing. Not to mention that I would write down everything Lent would say, in my precarious English I now find hilarious, so I could tell you at any time, supported with the proper documentation, from which album In a Dream was, the year of release and the number of points it had gotten that week. I was memorising everything, but I had other priorities, I was with Tease me, Please me, Prisoners in Paradise and Monkey Business.
Then it came a time when I was at the rock disco in Costinesti with my friends from Iasi, it was my first time in such an establishment, I was a bit of a wild child, no brothers no sisters, luckily for me I had the guys from Iasi. And there I saw people with long hair that reached their elbows banging their heads on a swingy, heavy and ponderous song and I could see their hair bouncing up in the poor light of the bulbs there, and sometime one of them would yell and throw his head back and his hands up; man, I was mesmerised and wide-eyed like a child at the Christmas tree. So I say: what’s the name of this song? Tiamat, The Sleeping Beauty. Wow, man. Tiamat. Wow.
The third memory is with my firend Sake. One day he comes to school and puts a tape under my nose: "Look what I found on the street." Man, all sorts of odd things happened to Sake, once he fell over the trolleybus driver, another time his salad flew on the walls at the McDonald’s. But I’m divagating. This time he had found a tape on the street. It was a good tape, some TDK or Sony, not a no-name like the ones we used to buy from our usual sources. Sake says: "you take it and listen to it, cause I can’t figure out what’s on it, sounds a bit like Biohazard, but I don’t think it’s them." The next day I go to Sake with the tape and I say: "Radule, I’ll tell you who’s playing, but only if you let me have it." I don’t know if it was curiosity or my pleading eyes, but Sake agreed and gave me the tape. What do you think was on it? Come on, pretend to be surprised: it was Tiamat with Clouds. When you find something it is said to be good luck, so if I forced Sake to give me his good luck, balance was restored a little later when someone dastardly stole a tape from my pocket on the bus. But finally I got the better deal, because it was with Night in Gales and I didn’t really like them, because they were playing too fast all the time. Besides, I have the added satisfaction of imagining the reaction of the new owner – a Romani ethnic – when he tried to enjoy his loot. Priceless.

Now that I’ve completed my memoirs, what can I tell you about the album? Nothing new for anyone who has heard it already.
Ah, did you know that it was almost called In a Dream, but Century Media didn’t go for it? This is why there’s no cloud on the cover while there’s quite a few of them in the title. I don’t know how it would sound to the years of someone who would hear it for the first time today, but in 1992, it was an epiphany. Back then there were some who played death metal, even Tiamat had played death metal on their first albums, and other who played doom metal. But to play both at the same time, it was rather hard to find. There were Paradise Lost; technically, they were doing the same thing, but there was a different... vibe, so to speak. To this musical innovation, Tiamat adds an atmosphere that would become unmistakable with each album. Oppressive riffs and ponderous rhythms, shaken from time to time by fast and furious outbursts, or lulled by acoustic parts, keyboards with influences via Istanbul to the Orient (to quote Dan Bitman), Edlund’s voice, sometimes whispering, sometimes coarse and barking through his teeth, the crafty alternation and balance of melody and aggression, everything was experimented and examined in all facets. They were explored endlessly by the loud crowd of bands that rushed to embrace this style that was at its first steps then. But this feeling of a deep slumber haunted by strange dreams and astral visions, opening gateways to sleepwalks above the clouds, nobody has managed to reproduce. Especially since the whole package is well supported by the lyrics, Edlund having reached a level in English that allowed him to unload into subtle phrases his struggles shaped into metaphors among the lines in the CD booklet. His obsessions have remained pretty much the same today: sleep and dreams, faith, Christianity, love and stars.
Clouds made Tiamat a big name, gave them their first hit - The Sleeping Beauty is still one of their most appreciated songs -  and a ton of touring, in which they lost three members on the way. Whether it was accidental or not, with them the band started to leave behind the heavy part of its music and would end up outside the metal zone, continuing his path with indifference to borders and traditions.

Klawz more Nota: 9


Posted at 23:05 |  09 Septembrie 2006  | 2 Comments  | 10117 Views

Comment on: Clouds

  • Hau,de unde 9...nici macar de 5 nu e.Compozitii simple,aproape banale,ruperi de ritm,pe alocuri se gaseste melodie,da foarte rar...mai bine suna cei de la macbeth,chiar daca nu-mi place in mod special

    1. Posted by ShadowXO | 31 Iulie 2008 23:35
  • Sanchi... asta e "cult album", sau aproape. Ceea ce Macbeth n-or sa poata neam de neamul lor, pardon frumos. Sau poate is eu prea legat de "Clouds" - cam ca si Klawz.

    2. Posted by Cristake | 17 Noiembrie 2010 19:34
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