Power of Metal.dk Review

Cloudkicker
Live with Intronaut
Rating
Style: Progressive Metal
Release date: 24 November, 2014
Playing time: 43:49
 


Cloudkicker is a one-man project, with the one man being Ben Sharp. Ben has released numerous albums under the Cloudkicker moniker via his bandcamp page for FREE. He was giving away his music before bandcamp even existed! He does this for fun and enjoyment without demands from a record label. This all-instrumental project is flat-out amazing and Ben is extremely talented. Things were going along normally until Intronaut came to town.

Ben gave the band some of his music to check out, thinking they might enjoy it. It turns out the band loved it. Fast forward a bit, the band said they wanted to take Cloudkicker on tour with them. There were a few issues with that. One, it’s just Ben. He doesn’t have an actual band. Secondly, he has a real job that he would need to get time off from. Intronaut resolved the first issue by offering to be Ben’s band. The second issue was resolved by Ben getting a month off from work.

For one month of his life, Ben Sharp was able to fulfill his dream: Cloudkicker was a real, touring band. It just doesn’t get better than that. He worked out a setlist of songs that would be able to be played live. He and Intronaut rehearsed and this album is the culmination of all of that. They went into a studio and recorded the whole set live. The crowd sounds were recorded from an actual gig. Not a traditional live album, but nothing about Cloudkicker is traditional!

Hopefully, “Live with Intronaut” opens up more doors for Ben and Cloudkicker. If you hear and love this album, go to his bandcamp page and BUY his music. Maybe he doesn’t care if he gets paid for it, but we all should care because this is great music. From the various parts of “Subsume” to “We’re going in. We’re going down.” to the epic closer “Push it way up!” this plays like a true “best of Cloudkicker” performance. Kudos to the guys from Intronaut for making this happen. They sound amazing as usual on this album and are obviously great guys. A true Cinderella story.


Tracklist
01. Subsume Part 1
02.
Subsume Part 2
03.
We are going to invert.../Here, wait a minute, damn it!
04.
We're goin' in, we're going down.
05.
Seriosity
06.
You and yours
07.
Dysphoria
08.
Subsume Part 8
09.
Push it way up!
Label: Century Media
Distribution: Universal (Denmark)
Artwork rating: 80/100
Reviewed by: Rob Pociluk
Date: 23 November, 2014
Website: cloudkickermusic.com