ALBUM REVIEW: Dormant – Silent Skies
Cinematic pop duo SILENT SKIES are back with their third studio album Dormant. The band is a project between EVERGREY’s Tom S. Englund and composer-pianist Vikram Shankar, with the sole goal to create something beautiful and dreamlike, a stark contrast from their other ventures. Now, the album itself is lovely to listen to and certainly offers a nice bit of escapism from reality, but it doesn’t take long for some songs to start merging into one another until it’s just one long track.
Of course, if you genuinely adore this kind of music then you may find that to be no issue whatsoever, but if you’re new to the genre, or perhaps exploring outside your tastes, you may be able to appreciate what they’re doing and that it sounds lovely, but it may also feel drawn out unnecessarily. If you listen to one song, then you essentially get the gist of 90% of the album.
It’s a shame though, because Dormant really does sound lovely and dreamlike, as if you’re floating above the clouds, but there’s not much else to say really. At first, Construct is an intriguing opening song with gentle piano and synths and dramatic vocals, something that would slot in beautifully within the Labyrinth soundtrack, for example. Things appear to build in intensity, twice, but it doesn’t really pay off into a powerful conclusion one would expect and that’s when find things have been going on a bit too long.
It’s hard to really go into details of each track as they roughly fall into the same description as the above, but to give credit there are moments that are beautiful and stand out nicely. New Life for example has a moodier vibe with dark piano and pop synths, and with the addition of choir harmonies it becomes a haunting piece that feels otherworldly. There’s also Just Above The Clouds, a dream-pop track that nicely brings in violins, but outside of those moments it’s hard to differentiate between the songs outside of statements like “piano ballad”, “dream pop song” or “calming”. It’s not to say that this album is bad or not worth your time, but it just all blends together into a long track.
To give further credit though, anyone should be able to appreciate the three covers of iconic rock songs at the end that take on SILENT SKIES‘ gentle approach. There’s IRON MAIDEN’s The Trooper, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN’s Dancing In The Dark, and LINKIN PARK’s Numb, all of which are songs that require no further introduction, and all of which are transformed into dream-like piano covers that work beautifully.
Ultimately, Dormant offers some lovely sounds, but little substance that will make you want to listen to it again. It might just not be for us, but we wish we could enjoy it more.
Rating: 6/10
Dormant is out now via Napalm Records.
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