Sometimes, an album hits directly upon how I’m feeling at the time it releases, and so it can be both difficult for me to hear, but also comforting. I’m a big fan of Tom and Vikram apart, but their project Silent Skies together is something special. The new album is called Dormant, and it releases on September 1st.
Silent Skies is brought to us by the collaboration of Tom Englund (Evergrey, Redemption) and Vikram Shankar (Lux Terminus, Redemption, a million other bands). Tom handles vocals and Vikram handles keyboards. Returning also is cellist Raphael Weinroth-Browne.
The duo’s sound has changed over the course of three albums, but primarily in subtle ways. The first album, Satellites, was illustrious and fomenting in tone. The second one, Nectar, was more enclosed, personal, and even ambient. This third record splits the difference, I think, focusing again on keyboards and piano, but not in a neoclassical sense. No, Vikram brings a pop-bred, cinematic style to bear in this album, and thus the music is lush, enlivening, and free. Combined with Tom’s signature emotive vocals, Dormant feels exotic, expressive, effervescent, and especially earnest.
Allow me to express how this album makes me feel. As soon as I saw the amazing cover art and title, I knew that I would connect with it. Like many others, I have been feeling the greyness of my flesh, even while the hunger of my mind grows. There are days when I give into that feeling of stillness, even while fiery feelings swirl within my chest. Silent Skies has created an album that taps into this, into the aching for feeling, into the pleading for the numbness to vanish.
They do this in signature fashion. Tom’s voice has been many things to me over the years, and right now it feels like the voice of sorrow and desperation, but also the voice of aspiration and light. He sings about the wavelength of life, the ups and downs that define who we are. And in that nostalgia of experience, inside that exploration of tragedy and elation, I find introspection about life with the goal of self-understanding. I find the stillness of some moments to feed that healing hibernation, and I find the expressive, expansive moments to feed the craving for life. Something about this album makes me feel like I can maybe unfurl myself from this dormancy, to feel vibrant and alive for the first time.
Dormant is a beauty. I see it as having three basic parts, two sets of five tracks, and then an addendum of three covers. The first part includes the two singles, “Construct” and “Churches”, both of which I love. Both of them make we want to fly on gentle breezes of grace and future hope. Both of them make me feel like I can be honest with the world about myself, and build a version of myself that I adore. It also contains three other terrific songs, “New Life” being one of my favorites, with its especially cinematic atmosphere, Vikram’s wonderful piano spirals, and desperate feelings; “Just Above the Clouds”, a gravy tune with purity of feeling; and another favorite, “Reset”, which has one of the best hooks on the album and also some of the best piano, I think. It reminds me of Jóhann Jóhannsson’s style, for some reason.
The second part does not fall in quality. “Tides” graces us with some of my favorite lyrics on the album, and I love how they used Raphael’s cello in the last couple minutes. “The Real Me” is another favorite with its expansive sound; you’ll hear drums here, which is new for the band, and the piano and cello together just feel so alive and colorful. This one has real spirit.
The last three songs are fantastic. “Light Up the Dark” is a love song, and I can feel it in my bones. I absolutely love the lyrics and chorus. The title track follows and is tinged with electronica, though it is mainly a piano ballad. It is a call for awakening, so it is hushed and persuasive and melancholic, but there is a rising fire within it. The final piece is “The Last on Earth”, a finale about breaking free and becoming. I love the swirling piano and the percussive second half that feels joyous and alive. What a great ending!
The addendum with the cover songs is solid, too. You know me—I’m not really a fan of covers for the most part, but these are all done well. I especially appreciate the Linkin Park’s “Numb” cover, and I have a certain love for Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark”, so I like that one, too. I’m less familiar with Iron Maiden, but “The Trooper” sounds good, too, especially the keys.
Silent Skies have a trio of amazing works now. Dormant might not have the immediacy of Nectar, but it is growing on me more and more, and I suspect that I may end up loving it even more at some point. Like its title suggests, maybe this one requires us to delve a little deeper. Dormant speaks to the battle between desire and apathy within us, and sometimes this inner war can make us complacent on the outside; can make us grey and withered. But the album does not leave us in forever Autumn or the dead of Winter; no, it brings us to the germination of our very souls, to the onset of Spring and to the glory days of Summer. I can’t wait to get my vinyl copy.
___________________
Find Silent Skies online:
___________________
___________________
The PROG Mind 
The album looks promising, the singles are great, and I LOVED Nectar. But man your writing and your passion are outstanding!
LikeLike