Cloudkicker- Fade

Over the last few years, Cloudkicker has been putting out an abundance of music, downloadable for whatever price we can afford to pay for it.  While Cloudkicker's music can range from post-rock to progressive metal, the common thread uniting most of his albums that they're mostly all instrumental, and always quality. Though an abundance of "donate to listen" heavy metal and "djent" instrumental acts have saturated the internet over the last two years, Cloudkicker continues to tower tall above most of them with Fade. 

The most noticeable thing about Fade upon first listen is the presence of distorted guitars, which announce a turn from the post-rock, folkish direciton of last year's Let Yourself Be Huge to the more metal and hard-rock oriented sound of Beacons and The Discovery. Fade, however, is not the same nonstop thrill ride that Beacons is. Whereas the latter is intense and turbulent, Fade sounds more relaxed and constant. The fast-paced clamor that characterizes songs like "Here, wait a minute! Damn it!" mostly gives way to heavy, melodic drone, like that featured on one of my favorite songs from Fade, "Seattle"; or else uplifting, U2-esque soundscaping guitars, like those heard on "LA After Rain", another favorite.

Like Beacons, Fade is a very consistent album that is sequenced very well. The songs work in a cyclical way, so that if you're listening casually you might not notice when one song has ended and another's begun. Still, sections of some songs tend to drag, and it is overall not as good as some of Cloudkicker's previous work.  And while almost all of the songs on the record morph into something great, a few, like "The Focus" and "Making Will Mad" begin with rarely generic rocking. Though Fade is exceptional, it doesn't dethrone Beacons as Cloudkicker's crowning achievement. 

Still, any fan of any type of rock or metal oriented music at all would be doing themselves a disservice by not giving Cloudkicker a try. You can name your price for the album at the Cloudkicker's bandcamp, here. And, while you're there, you might as well pick-up Beacons and everything else on his page if you haven't already.

Here's to much more quality music from Cloudkicker in the future!

Cynic- The Portal Tapes

Cynic's new (old) CD, "The Portal Tapes", is my very first contribution to this brand-new blog. Disclaimer: while I love Cynic's recent output, Traced in Air and Carbon-based Anatomy, I've barely listened to Focus (not really big on tech-death), which will probably invalidate everything I have to say about this album in the eyes of die-hard fans who just want to listen to Focus over and over again.

Calling The Portal Tapes a Cynic release is odd, because the material on this record was never meant for Cynic, but for Portal, a ditched side-project from1994-1995 that featured mainly members of Cynic and vocalist Aruna Abrams. On The Portal Tapes, Abrams' voice dominates, which sets quite a different tone from most of Cynic's other material. Aside from an overwhelming emphasis on female vocals, though, the material is not much different than what fans of Cynic's latest efforts have become accustomed to. There is less "metal" and more experimentation. Synthesizers are used liberally, and there are more spaced-out atmospheric sections than heavy, technical ones. Some songs are even audacious enough to have been written in the major key, with sprinkled airy-piano throughout.

In addition, Chris Kringel's fretless bass work on many songs really adds to the project's individuality. On the lighter, Jazzier songs it really shines. While Traced in Air was a good album, it really seems stylistically regressive compared to the territory this project was blazing into circa '94-'95.

The Portal Tapes might not work as an full-length album (even as it's longer than most Cynic albums), but it is an interesting and rewarding look at a band that has always valued innovation, progressiveness, and self-discovery through music. After listening to The Portal Tapes, it's become increasingly obvious to me that Cynic's current musical direction is one that has been in the works for some time. Not everything on The Portal Tapes is good, but Portal were tapping into some potentially awesome styles of playing that were well ahead of their time, and I'm glad to see that Cynic, with releases like Carbon-Based Anatomy, are finally fulling that potential now.