Before AtomA, there was the Swedish doom-metal band called Slumber. Their masterpiece album ‘Fallout’ received critical acclaim, but also trapped its members in a doom/death style corner where they did not necessarily felt entirely comfortable. Lead vocalist Ehsan Kalantarpour wanted to depart from the strict formula of this genre, and instead of changing radical course with Slumber, he and Slumber band members Siavosh Bigonah on guitar and bass, Markus Hill on drums, Christian Älvestam on guitar and doing back vocals, decided to start an entirely new music project instead. Two other Slumber members, guitarist Jari Lindholm and drummer Ted Larsson, both decided to focus on other music projects for the moment.
Where Slumber previously had relied on growling, AtomA allows itself to explore the power of singing voices. Where ‘Fallout’ was a perfect mix of doom and death metal, ‘Skylight’ explores the vast atmospheric worlds Kalantarpours mysterious and at times exotic voice and epic melodies can create. And it is a magnificent world indeed which the band brings to its fans. Captivating you from beginning to end, this album takes you on a vivid journey with majestic instrumentation underlining a swelling, roaring and echoing voice, sending you deep into space and time. It is clear that AtomA allowed itself to explore far beyond the traditional peripheries of doom metal. Sometimes the stunning compositions seem to even incorporate hints of ambient or trance, other times there is a flash of Pink Floyd and Tiamat’s ‘Deeper Kind of Slumber’ detectable on ‘Skylight’. But it never distracts from the ultimately driving and authentic sound this album sighs.
In ten songs, AtomA takes its audience on an apocalyptic journey of carefully constructed twilight, that eventually ends with hope and light. It manages to create an entire universe of its own, mesmerizing in its sweeping melodies and atmosphere, that seems to want to offer both an escape and a refuge from the world out there. Guitars, keyboards and voices are growing in force and dueling and inter-playing in many of the albums songs, creating both tension and a vast cyclone of still highly balanced sounds and moods. Just as you would expect from an atmospheric album as good as this one. There is an initial rise in intensity until the halfway point of the album, after which the slowly softening melodies and compositions create a more harmonious and calming sound. The albums last tracks. ”Saturn and I’ and ‘Cloud Nine’ are especially soothing and dreamlike when compared to antagonistic and highly energized opening tracks like ‘Hole in the Sky’ and ‘Skylight’, the highlight of this album with Kalantarpours sweeping and threatening voice. But the album does not lull itself to sleep; closing track ‘Cloud Nine’, with its beautifully pushing melodies, ends in the right culmination of consonance, drums, voices and synthesizers, to make you envision either a paradise after the shitstorm, or a peaceful death after the apocalypse.
Verdict; absolute masterpiece through and throughout. This is as good as it gets, people.
****
Stand out tracks: Skylight, Hole in the Sky, Highway, Resonance and Rainmen.
Track listing:
01. Atoma
02. Skylight
03. Hole in the Sky
04. Highway
05. Bermuda Riviera
06. Resonance
07. Solaris
08. Rainmen
09. Saturn and I
10. Cloud Nine
Label: Napalm Records
Skylight, AtomA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M_8asTJOH0
And of course don’t forget to check out my long youtube playlist with many good songs, mainly in the genres shoegaze, post-rock, indie, atmospheric rock, melodic metal and dream-pop.