SILENT SKIES, the brainchild of the transatlantic duo of Tom Englund (EVERGREY) and renowned classical pianist Vikram Shankar (REDEMPTION, LUX TERMINUS), are about to drown us in an ocean of beautiful, cinematic melancholy once again as their third studio album “Dormant” comes out on September 1st, 2023, via Napalm Records. Continuing on the atmospheric path of Scandinavian melancholy charted on the previous efforts, “Nectar” (2022) and “Satellites” (2020), the new endeavor plunges even deeper into lush and incandescent soundscapes over the course of ten new songs, each of which is thoroughly marinated in emotional elegance of almost peerless quality. As an added bonus, the album comes with three bonus tracks – covers of well-known classics by IRON MAIDEN, Bruce Springsteen, and LINKIN PARK. Yeah, these aren’t names you’d think of first when listening to this duo but, to use a rather vernacular phrase, these two musical sages really “own that shit!”
The shimmering opener, “Construct,” was released as a single in July. Its contemplative keyboard motifs and yearnful melodies soft-brush a haunting widescreen landscape of hope and despair. My instant thought was, ”If the rest of the album is going to be this good, this album goes straight to my Album of the Year list!” After a few spins, there are no questions about it – this cinematic odyssey truly set a darkly iridescent, highly evocative tone for the whole outing and, by doing so, set the bar rather high: this endeavor is AotY material, hands down.
Some of Tuonela Magazine’s most avid readers might have noticed that I’m not exactly a fan of ballads. However, if there’s a sure-fire way to captivate me with one such thing, “New Life” hints quite prominently at the winning formula. Setting things in motion with a plaintive piano motif that nods slightly toward the diabolus in musica, the tritone interval, the song resonates with a somewhat 1980s-tinted arena-rock ballad vibe. Yet, it triumphantly steers clear from turning into a Michael Bolton number. I don’t know how, but it does. You know, it doesn’t happen very often that my finger goes for the repeat button while listening to a song that is essentially a ballad. Maybe it’s the flat fifth, the Devil’s interval… Then again, the whole selection is quite ballady, so there has got to be something else at work too.
Next up, “Churches” gears up a good notch stronger on the 1980s vibes, although with an elegance that is more akin to David Sylvian‘s endeavors than the standard mainstream balladry. Shankar‘s choices of keyboard timbres and synth textures are so top-tier that they need to be mentioned, in particular. The recipe for success seems to be about layering simple piano progressions with delicious analog synth sounds. In terms of tonality, I sense a subtle kinship with the style of Lyle Mays from his PAT METHENY GROUP years; albeit Shankar‘s voicings are a tad less jazz-tinted, obviously, there’s something peculiar in common that I cannot put my finger on. This impression is most prominent in “Just Above the Clouds.” The song or the album as a whole features no guitars but if it did, Pat Metheny‘s signature style, as demonstrated in David Bowie‘s ”This Is Not America,” would be the perfect fit. That is just to say there is a haunting kind of timelessness about the album.
Perhaps it is this timeless quality that makes it extremely hard to single out the best tracks; they all have something that sends shivers up your spine. Even at its most minimalist, the album maintains its haunting, magnetic pull. In “Reset,” this is done with plaintive piano arpeggios; “Tides,” in turn, is a deep dive into an ambient ocean of Ryuichi Sakamoto-like piano motifs and ethereal synths, on top of which Englund‘s vocal delivery weaves nothing short of heart-wrenching melodies.
And speaking of Sakamoto, who passed away earlier this year, he was undoubtedly another kindred spirit to this bunch. If you listen to, say, the collaboration track, “World Citizen (I Won’t Be Disappointed),” which featured Sylvian on vocals, there are a good deal of similarities, not only in terms of haunting emotion but also in the way electronic elements are incorporated into the darkly luminous ambient spheres. The title track, “Dormant,” on this SILENT SKIES effort is a fine example of this by virtue of being driven by a chilled-out electronic beat and swelling synth sweeps, on top of which the contemplative vocals work their magic. It does recall those haunting collaborations of Sakamoto and Sylvian rather nicely.
Then, the choices of covers that are added as bonus tracks are rather intriguing, to say the least. Reading the press release before listening to the album, I must say it made me raise my eyebrow to notice IRON MAIDEN‘s “Trooper” on the tracklist. Against all odds, this slowed-down, ambient rendition is pretty good! The duo really owns the song and makes it sound as if it were their own. Bruce Springsteen‘s “Dancing in the Dark” works best as a SILENT SKIES interpretation among these covers. The new arrangement is fire! The cover of LINKIN PARK‘s “Numb” is pretty good as well but the original is kind of ready-made for this kind of interpretation, so the new version does not unearth completely new nuances from the song like these other two cover versions do.
So, at the end of the day, SILENT SKIES really does deliver a body blow with their new album. The promotional copy of the album was for streaming only, but this is one of those occasions when I’m going to have to get the album in physical format anyway, even if the label had sent me a digital version. So, hear me out: Get this album now – you will not regret it!
Written by Jani Lehtinen
Tracklist
- Construct
- New Life
- Churches
- Just Above the Clouds
- Reset
- Tides
- The Real Me
- Light Up the Dark
- Dormant
- The Last on Earth (Bonus Track)
- Dancing in the Dark (Bonus Track)
- Numb (Bonus Track)
Lineup
Tom Englund – vocals, production
Vikram Shankar – piano, keyboards, production
Label
Napalm Records
