It’s all happening for A Cloud of Ravens at the moment. Not only out touring the world sharing stages with the likes of Then Comes Silence, Clan of Xymox, and Curse Mackey but a new 11-track album of dark and delicious delights.
Right from the opening, clinical drum beats and brooding, relentless bass line of “Requiem For The Sun,” you know where you are, musically speaking. The sound is shaded, edgy, underground to the point of being subterranean, a swirl of post-punk energies and gothic thrill, alt-rock urges, and darkwave-dance grooves. Okay, you have my attention.
And so they should, for as we tumble down this sonic rabbit hole, we encounter abrasive, metallic riffs with “In Winter’s Arms,” anthemic and graceful and grand gothic anthems via “Parable,” measured and melodic clubland darkwave grooves courtesy of “Nature of Artifice” and majestic cinematic epics thanks to “Old Ghosts.”
It’s all there, from the alternative nightclub and dance floor fillers to the hard rocking groovers and from the slow and filmic ambiance to rope-dance nostalgia for the die-hards. But, as much as A Cloud of Ravens makes music that echoes with the sound of past sonic glories, this isn’t a band just recreating their record collection, far from it. Not for them the plagiarism and plundering of what has gone before.
No, this is post-punk with a purpose, goth with a goal, alternative music with an agenda. And that agenda is to bring gothic music, for want of a better term, up to date and give it a bright (okay, not the best choice of words) new future. And on the strength of Lost Hymns, they are on to a winner.
Order the ‘Lost Hymns’ LP
Album order
Spotify
Order the single
Requiem For The Sun
Nature of Artifice
