OKComputer1016
07/10/08, 06:14 PM
Clouds - We Are Above You
Record Label: Hydra Head Records
Release Date: June 17, 2008
Judging by the title, Clouds should be the disorientingly ambient new age band that you’d hear in some incense and candles store, right? Wrong. You’d never suspect just how many chunky down strokes or illogically un-scale-abiding jams were crammed into this disc, and neither at the expense of actual good songwriting. Somehow, Clouds juggle a few decades full of influences without dropping the ball.
We Are Above You is similar to Torche’s Meanderthal in that it’s pretty consistently heavy, but it’s still really catchy. The trends of the past few years have separated the hooky and the heavy to opposite sides of the musical spectrum; you would have to listen to The Strokes to hear catchy and you’d have to listen to Dillinger Escape Plan to get your rock on. But that’s not the case anymore: enter the one-word-titled metal bands to put things back the way they ought to be. And leave it to Hydra Head Records to stand firmly behind the revolution.
With Cave-In’s Adam McGrath on guitar and songwriting duties, there’s a pretty solid guarantee that Clouds’ music will not fail to surprise you with every track. The man lives up to his reputation by twisting songs into keys that probably have not been invented yet (“Slow Day”), winding up and slowing down tempos (“Horrification” and “Garbage In, Garbage Out”), and calling a song “Year Zero,” but not having it suck. “The Bad Seat” sounds like the result of listening to Spoon right before attending an epic Faith No More show, then getting a concussion and mentally mixing the two. Yeah, I know you can’t imagine that; that’s why you’ve got to listen to it!
The production is like Meanderthal as well, in that it bursts from the speakers with great quality, but the mixing seems a little bass heavy. Well, okay... a lot bass heavy; the subwoofer on my speaker system vibrated the ground to the point where things were falling off the walls, and I really don’t think that’s ever happened to me before. So there – that’s what Clouds has in common with earthquakes. I’m still trying to find a suitable cloud analogy though... sorry about that.
Clearly, We Are Above You is an album that floats all over the place like an awesome iTunes playlist. It pulls unexpectedly in every direction as if striving to be the definitive slow groove album of the ADD generation (sorry Type O Negative; times have changed). Just make sure not to take the ironic band name too seriously; these guys are anything but fluffy, and anything but... uh... an atmospheric body of very fine water droplets that often precedes rain.
Melvins, Torche, Harvey Milk
myssace.com/cloudsrock (http://www.myspace.com/cloudsrock)
Record Label: Hydra Head Records
Release Date: June 17, 2008
Judging by the title, Clouds should be the disorientingly ambient new age band that you’d hear in some incense and candles store, right? Wrong. You’d never suspect just how many chunky down strokes or illogically un-scale-abiding jams were crammed into this disc, and neither at the expense of actual good songwriting. Somehow, Clouds juggle a few decades full of influences without dropping the ball.
We Are Above You is similar to Torche’s Meanderthal in that it’s pretty consistently heavy, but it’s still really catchy. The trends of the past few years have separated the hooky and the heavy to opposite sides of the musical spectrum; you would have to listen to The Strokes to hear catchy and you’d have to listen to Dillinger Escape Plan to get your rock on. But that’s not the case anymore: enter the one-word-titled metal bands to put things back the way they ought to be. And leave it to Hydra Head Records to stand firmly behind the revolution.
With Cave-In’s Adam McGrath on guitar and songwriting duties, there’s a pretty solid guarantee that Clouds’ music will not fail to surprise you with every track. The man lives up to his reputation by twisting songs into keys that probably have not been invented yet (“Slow Day”), winding up and slowing down tempos (“Horrification” and “Garbage In, Garbage Out”), and calling a song “Year Zero,” but not having it suck. “The Bad Seat” sounds like the result of listening to Spoon right before attending an epic Faith No More show, then getting a concussion and mentally mixing the two. Yeah, I know you can’t imagine that; that’s why you’ve got to listen to it!
The production is like Meanderthal as well, in that it bursts from the speakers with great quality, but the mixing seems a little bass heavy. Well, okay... a lot bass heavy; the subwoofer on my speaker system vibrated the ground to the point where things were falling off the walls, and I really don’t think that’s ever happened to me before. So there – that’s what Clouds has in common with earthquakes. I’m still trying to find a suitable cloud analogy though... sorry about that.
Clearly, We Are Above You is an album that floats all over the place like an awesome iTunes playlist. It pulls unexpectedly in every direction as if striving to be the definitive slow groove album of the ADD generation (sorry Type O Negative; times have changed). Just make sure not to take the ironic band name too seriously; these guys are anything but fluffy, and anything but... uh... an atmospheric body of very fine water droplets that often precedes rain.
Melvins, Torche, Harvey Milk
myssace.com/cloudsrock (http://www.myspace.com/cloudsrock)