Tiamat
Clouds

THE REVIEW

"The girl opened her mouth, 
I opened my veins 
The girl opened her heart 
I opened the door to another world"

"Undressed"

 Although for many, the undisputed masterpiece of Tiamat, in their now nearly two-decade-long career ("Sumerian Cry" was released in '89), is "WildHoney", I like to think that perhaps not everyone has grasped the beauty with which this "Clouds" is infused, so emotional and intimate, yet at the same time rough and rebellious.

Let's start by saying that it's 1992, and at the time, the death scene is on a great rise; the metal world has definitively discovered and accepted its most extreme offshoot, eventually also managing to exploit its side more related to the music biz (just think of the sales success of Sepultura's "Chaos A.D." or on a smaller scale, the 300,000 copies sold by Obituary's "The End Complete").

In this boiling magma, now no longer in its primordial state, some bands have already begun different paths towards creative shores not particularly explored: thus, Paradise Lost moves from the sulfurous "Gothic" to the more accessible "Shades of God", while Anathema with "The Silent Enigma" are about to tone down the brutality and harshness of "Serenades". And Tiamat? At the end of the '80s, they took part in the birth of the Scandinavian death scene, already from the start renouncing those sounds that later made bands like Entombed, Dismember, Grave and the like famous, while maintaining its structure and especially lyrics clearly of an occult/satanic nature, a habit they have not yet lost (see the lyrics of the latest "Prey").

After "Sumerian Cry" and "The Astral Sleep", the latter truly a delightful little musical gem, our guys (or rather the leader and main composer Johan Edlund) decided it was time to further stray from the trend and released "Clouds": the death/doom legacies, still strongly present especially in the vocals, are interwoven with grandeur by suffering yet always apt keyboard insertions, delicate pre-gothic era scores clearly emerge, scattered throughout the entire album's development.

The album is clearly not a concept one, but honestly, during the approximately 40 minutes of proposed music, the dreamy atmospheres often almost dimly lit, obviously spiced with some outbursts particularly as a backdrop to passionate and sensual solos, give the idea of a notable continuity of intent as there are no songs too dissonant from each other. Into this homogeneity, which does not mean photocopied pieces, the lyrics are also inserted, often focused on sentimental themes, love (even towards Satan), disappointments, and observations on the beauty and depth of the universe.

In the case of "Clouds", perhaps a track-by-track description is not very functional, since the individual songs do not have such sudden changes or variations to justify a detailed description: you just need to enter "a dream" and let yourself be pervaded by the wonderful sonic sensations that pieces like the opener or "A Caress of Star" know how to offer, to languish over the notes of "Forever Burning Flames" and "The Sleeping Beauty", to then wake up in the suffering of "Undressed".

The graphic context accompanying the album, crafted by the great Kristian Wahlin, is also truly on point, managing with a few but delightful drawings to concentrate the emotions the album knows how to express, capturing the true essence of "Clouds".

Personally, the album I emotionally prefer among Tiamat's work.