...And the Clouds are Moving

Review by Andrew Parker

My take on this effort by Sky is Blue is much the same as that on the work of Leonard Cohen, whose infamous novel, The Favourite Game, supplies the title and many of the macabre, emotionally desolate images on the album. In short, this disc has some chillingly brilliant moments, yet the songs somehow meld together into a repetitive blur.

Guitars get full attention on this record, plowing through the songs with two razor sharp blades. Vocalist 'Niner' growls his way through the material, yet, to me, seems to lack emotional believability in his voice. On "Room #3," a track looking at the legacy of abuse, the complexities of pain on the lyric sheet don't erupt into music with anything rivaling the bubbling anger of, say, Pearl Jam's "Jeremy." The final two songs salvaged this record for me, with "Rebirth" opening with a soothing, layered guitar solo, seeping into drums and vocals, then finally building into an inevitable explosive bridge.

Artist Contact Info: P.O. Box 65 - 2831 Shaughnessy St., Port Coquitlam, B.C., Canada, V3C 3H1