Review Summary: It's free, well put together instrumental metal. Let's face it you've got nothing to lose.
Musicians work hard to make the music that we love, so why not reward them? In this case, Cloudkicker, the solo project of Ben Sharp, is nothing more than an expressive, selfless effort to make some really great music at the listeners benefit. It’s all recorded by him, produced, and then distributed free over his Bandcamp page as a free download. Does he even require or ask for donations? Negative, ghost rider. Cloudkicker’s 2010 EP
]]][[[ is just three songs of pure metal harmony that bridge on the gap between post and progressive metal to meld a nice mix of two worlds that need reacquainting.
This EP fits nicely in with the progressive metal genre among giants such as Animals As Leaders or Scale The Summit. The first track “#” starts off rather lightly with more of a rock sense and then gradually builds into a serious metal groove after it hits the peak around three and a half minutes. The riffs in this song are most reminiscent of Between The Buried and Me or possibly another prized album of the year,
Peril and The Patient by Called To Arms. While it seems for the rest of the song the same riff is recycled and used over and over again, the song is still consistent enough to keep the listeners attention at six minutes in length. The middle man, “%” is the prized possession of this short release. Although it doesn’t have an epic buildup in the traditional sense, the whole song gives off the feeling that you could expect one any moment. The guitar playing is fluid, not too heavy and not too light. In a much heavier sense it really reminds me of “Untitled 3” off of Sigur Ros’s
( ). The last track is “$” which starts off heavier, drops off in the middle and then picks up in the end again. It’s a rather standard instrumental until then end when Mr. Sharp displays his skills with a pretty fast fingered solo to finish off the EP in a good fashion. One element of the album that some might not agree with is the drumming which is done by software so it can get rather repetitive at times, but with the constant riffs blundering your eardrums you probably won’t even notice. Nonetheless, it’s another solid and free release from Cloudkicker. What have you got to lose besides 15 minutes of your time?
Cloudkicker's music can be downloaded free here: http://cloudkicker.bandcamp.com
