Album Review :~ Clouds - Durere

The emptiness that masks substance as souls embark on the final journey, life is dead and death is here. I enjoy prototypical brooding doom band. When someone tells you about atmospheric death/doom metal at first a delineation will click automatically in your imaginary such as excruciatingly slowly, pulchritudinous heavy, eschew crushing, bleakest, most hauntingly beautiful, graceful, down-tuned, slow-motion soundscapes of drifting, floating, dreamlike music, moving in gentle transitions to vaguely shifting perspectives of mood. Feel yourself decay, gaze helplessly, thoughtlessly as the preternaturally odious head over the horizon, blotting out the last scarlet gasps of a moribund sunset, looming over the eerily tranquil and temperate ocean like an antediluvian menhir - massive, silent, mysterious and unspeakable journey, alone in a darkened room, lighting a few candles, unsealed some good wine and settling in for an uninterrupted hour of beauteous melancholic death/doom sound driven by feelings and thus creates immense power and resonate overpowering as it is a purely exquisite voyage of yielding passion. That's probably just me and my definition of depression.

When it comes to atmospheric doom and gloom, melancholy doom-metal firebrands Clouds always atop for me with their breathtakingly sad and beautiful, like wanting to cradle painful songs. Clouds have a special place in my heart. There are a few distinct bands in the world of heavy metal who, by so effectively honing their musical vision, have the unique talent of creating a rich, almost visible atmosphere. It's difficult to imagine, but "Durere" surpassed than their previous work and moved Clouds to the whole new level with their something absolutely new and unimaginably great music level. Clouds unleashed their fifth full-length opus entitled “Durere” in starting of the predecessor month with 58:28 min running time along with atmospheric, morose, forlorn but heavy as fuck doom with more sadness and pathos than you can stand and you will definitely feel oppressed. Mixing death/doom metal with atmospheric, gloomy vibe was their forte. The new album is filled with more unearthly, astounding, critical acclaimed, heavy, claustrophobic misery, enigmatic melodies. This new album is consist of 7 tracks. Now I’m straight diving to the point about this new album.

This new studio efforts whole compositions showcased such power and emotion conveyed throughout the duration. This album embrace of the most beautiful of deaths. Monstrous lead voice rumbles deep in passing observations and recollections of forgotten memories, accompanied by a choir of ghostly angels soothing the sorrow of fading light that signals the end of experience in a world incapable of sustaining its illusionary promise of an ideal state of beauty and truth and a painful realization from which this music sleepily drifts away. This is truly a beautiful, wondrous piece of music, very organic and is constantly in motion along with your feelings, emotion. When I was spinning their latest studio effort for the first time I was overwhelmed, invaded my ears and this album sounds so authentic, mature and truly epic and from then I was clinched that I have to check out the whole material for sure and indeed this would be unblemished. This is triumphant sophisticated, spine-chilling atmospheric death/ doom metal.

Daniel Neagoe himself banishes all our doubts regarding the genre describing the music of "Durere" and putting particular emphasis on the first word and rekindle my endless love for atmospheric death/ doom metal. I cherish all of the member’s unsurpassed quality, ability and skill along with tremendous effort portrayed in this album in a radiant way with excellent diligence and nailed it. After a multiple listen their latest studio effort infused me with their unabating, powerful, overarching, chromatic, multi-layered, ultra-dense, monolithic, heart wrenching, sorrowful atmospheric death/ doom metal just blew me away. Their musical style has a hypnotic effect and especially more atmospheric kind of death/ doom metal but at the same time, the soundscape brings on sensations of crushing depression and evoke feelings of desperation making for a very dynamic performance.

This whole album reflects the grand diversity of this album.  A natural synthesis of mournful sounds and disparate styles all combined in one bold, enlightened display of unbound creativity. Easily this whole album hooked me up with its vocals filthy, crushing voice, some clean vox as well as and their doom-laden, deep, unrelenting, melancholic, sorrowful, distant musical style with marvellous, exquisite piano works and builds layers of melancholy through high reverb along with the slow tempo. Their musical style avoids themselves falling into the usual funeral boredom. These are truly nit-picking.”Durere" fueled by an immediately convincing, weeping riff and an equally gripping bass line also it flows effortlessly and though the music is a pretty dirge. They manage to shift tempos just at the right moments to keep things rolling along like a grim parade. The kind of music that swells the heart even as it rips with sorrow and loneliness and music is so emotional you can almost see the individual notes break down and cry. I highly appreciate and embrace this album.

This album is filled with a slew of delicate, whopping, intense, slow but powerful, heavy riffs work. In each track breathtaking, rumbling, filthy, soaring riffs, bass lineups matched in a well manner with mournful sounds are rightly used as an additional uncanny harmonic layer laced with dazzling, epic, exquisite piano-laden melodies. Amazing things about Cloud is with a single introductory note of a piano contains volumes of pain and suffering where the next can hold release and liberation while the surrounding strings and drums hammer in each gruesome heartache after another into the darkest corners of your mind while the always immaculate vocals keep bringing them back to surface so all of your self-hatred and doubt rise back up like the tide; an experience that’s all too real for many but somehow amazingly attractive in its presentation. The album carries with it an aura that is austere, melancholic, bereft of sunlight but one that above all excels at comprehensively nailing the listener into place and fixing his mind on the subject matter.

A grand manifestation of melancholy. This album indulges strong songwriting and brilliant musicianship. Vocals howling scream, hoarse, inhuman, deep rasps, deep lung-burning roars, immense, large voice and Clean vox as well as emerged on this album meticulously and intertwined perfectly with their utterly spellbinding, obtuse, melodic, doomy, fully blistering, grandiose, sorrowful, distant musical style precisely with a lot of atmospheric accompaniment, piano leads and embedded perfectly. Overall you will get sinister, gloomy, desolate, mysterious ambient from this whole album. Some excellent, emotional stuff right here.

Each song has energy, fluency and magical quality. Stand out tracks are all of them. I personally "Above the Sea", "The Sailor Waves Goodbye" and "A Father's Death" tracks but to be honest all tracks are splendid. Album artwork is precise, indelible and meaningful too. The production gives the music a powerful clarity, the atmosphere, drum propulsion and vibrant bass performance producing a non-stop surge of adrenaline. This new album displays their virtuosic performance and versatility with tremendous ability, skill and this one really makes sense and carries real emotions. Clouds always gifted us great riffs but these are some of their best yet. Always melancholy and sombre, they flit between beautiful and crushing and maintain that delicate equipoise across the album’s length. Overall "Durere" is equally wrist slitting with some truly unhappy lead riffs that smother whatever hope you may have squirrelled away deep in the crevices of your dark heart. This album is Spectacular, engrossing, significant, rich and another terrific atmospheric piece that oozes despair, sadness and solitariness. The production is absolutely impeccable, capable of handling both the massive atmospheric and gargantuan heft. Clouds manage to catch that grim atmosphere of Katharsis and the likes of that. After all, every event in our life that has to do with death has a profound effect on us, making us analyze and philosophize about our existence we are, unmistakably, both frightful of and intrigued by it. "Durere" sets your mind alight, rather than your senses. This album sounds so authentic and a truly remarkable sonic journey from beginning to end. Indeed this album is such a true gem of 2020. This is highly recommended to add it in your collection. They stir up mournful energy however there is always a balance between bliss and bitterness. “Durere” reinforces the sonic resemblance of despair. It makes me dream bigger, thinks harder, envisions broader.

My Rating – 5/5 Review done by – Souvik Basu. Published on 03.04.2020