Cloudkicker – Fade

August 2, 2012 • self-released

Another year, another Cloudkicker album. While the project's debut was admirable—in fact one of the best prog-metal albums in recent years—time has shown Sharp running out of ideas and his music has suffered a bit for it. Fade isn't a bad album by any means, but it has its problems.

One of the things that drew me to Cloudkicker in the first place was the incredibly catchy yet technical math-metal riffs of The Discovery and the way they complimented the album's uplifting mood. Fade is still very much a Cloudkicker album in that the same major-chord riffs and floaty atmosphere are always present, in addition to plenty of really great rhythmic sections, though presented in a more post-rock style instead of straight metal. The performance is solid all around—lots of neat layered guitars, nice gritty bass, and good drum programming. The production is getting slicker as well and everything is very clear and audible, so if nothing else the album is technically pleasing to listen to.

I suppose that, at least for me, nothing about Fade is as memorable or interesting as The Discovery or Beacons that makes it stand out. Sure, it has some nice riffs but in general the songwriting is simply a bit dull. Either some sections drag on so long as to become boring or the songs jarringly jump around between totally different styles. On the other hand, the second half of the album is a major improvement over the first half (tracks 5–7 specifically); for some reason the songs seem more consistent and enjoyable. So it's worth sticking through to the end, even though the first few tracks pose a bit of a barrier to me.

I still wish Cloudkicker would venture back into the math metal realm, but as far as things go Fade isn't bad. It's not something I'm probably going to ever listen to again, but I'm hopeful that this album marks more of a stepping stone for Cloudkicker into something that will be a little better.

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