Tiamat

"Clouds" (Century Media, 1992)

When Death Metal Dreamed in Grey 

In 1992, as Swedish Death Metal reached peak aggression in the hands of Entombed and Dismember, another band emerged from the shadows with a different vision. With "Clouds", Tiamat stepped away from the rawness of their early death/Black Metal roots and unveiled something hauntingly elegant, a record that whispered and wept as much as it roared. This was not a betrayal of heaviness. It was an evolution. And Clouds stands as one of the first, finest blueprints for what would become gothic Death Metal, even as it preserved the brutality of its origins.

Tiamat began as a straightforward Death Metal outfit (then under the name Treblinka), steeped in the same feral spirit that animated the early Swedish scene. But "Clouds", their third full-length album, saw the band abandon the dungeons of Death Metal orthodoxy and reach for something more existential, melancholic, and atmospheric.

What makes Clouds so compelling is its transitional nature, a liminal space between worlds. On one side, we hear deep death growls, thunderous percussion, and cold, distorted riffs. On the other, we encounter keyboards, acoustic passages, melodic lead lines, and lyrical themes drawn more from dreamscapes and inner torment than gore or blasphemy. The result is an album that doesn’t just play, it lingers.

From the opening moments of “In a Dream,” there’s a sense of slow-building grandeur. The song emerges not with blast beats or tremolo-picked fury, but with a brooding, mid-tempo march, as Johan Edlund’s vocals, guttural but articulate, narrate a personal descent. His voice is cavernous, yet restrained, like a demon reflecting instead of devouring. 

Guitarists Thomas Petersson and Edlund layer distorted rhythms with clean melodic leads, often minor-key and melancholic, evoking early Paradise Lost or the shadowy depths of Celtic Frost. The production, handled by Waldemar Sorychta, offers clarity without sacrificing atmosphere, every drum hit echoes like a heartbeat in a cathedral.

Standouts like “The Sleeping Beauty” and “Scapegoat” mix aggressive sections with eerie synth backdrops and subtle, almost whispered vocal passages. There’s a theatrical quality here, but never overwrought, “Clouds” wears its sorrow with dignity.

Lyrically, "Clouds" abandons the overtly satanic themes of early extreme metal in favour of introspection, poetic nihilism, and abstract spirituality. The title itself, “Clouds” is telling. It suggests something vast yet intangible, dark yet always in motion. These are songs of loss, doubt, and existential hunger, cloaked in the imagery of nocturnal rites and forgotten gods.

“The Sleeping Beauty” reads like a gothic lament, its title referencing fairytale and funeral in equal measure. “In a Dream” blurs the lines between nightmares and prophecy. And the closing track, “Undressed,” feels like a final shedding of old skin, a foreshadowing of the band’s future transformation.

While "Clouds" didn’t sell millions or storm charts, its legacy is profound. It sits at the crossroads of death/doom, gothic metal, and atmospheric rock. Alongside Paradise Lost’s "Gothic" and Anathema’s "Serenades", it helped open the door for bands to embrace emotion, texture, and vulnerability in extreme metal, without ever abandoning its weight.

Tiamat would soon leave Death Metal almost entirely behind with 1994’s “Wildhoney”, a psychedelic, progressive masterwork. But "Clouds" remains the key turning point, a sacred grey space where thunder and mist collide. More than a Death Metal album, “Clouds” is a twilight hymn, heavy with sorrow, but lit with a strange, beautiful glow.