Tiamat: Wildhoney

Band: Tiamat
Album: Wildhoney
Tracklist:

1. Wildhoney
2. Whatever That Hurts (!)
3. The Ar
4. 25th Floor
5. Gaia (!)
6. Visionaire
7. Kaleidoscope
8. Do You Dream of Me?
9. Planets
10. A Pocket Size Sun

(The ! marks the best songs on the album, some might have more than one)

"Honey tea, psilocybe larvae

Honeymoon, silver spoon

Psilocybe tea"

Previous to this seminal (and revolutionizing) album, Tiamat had just completed their album Clouds in which they had further evolved. Their evolutionary rate had been increasing with incredible speed, and yet this album took the fans and the scene by complete surprise when it came out.

Prior to making this album Johan Edlund had fired most of the band, leaving only himself and bassist (allegedly because he was unsatisfied with their musical progress), then he headed towards the studio with a group of session musicians in tow.

The premise doesn't sound too welcoming, but the result speaks for itself and for the vision of Johan Edlund.

The music could be described as metal combined with Pink Floyd, something that so many would have wanted to try - but no one had quite managed. Their lingering death metal roots are still audible, but the album's mood is ethereal and dreamy, far removed from the scope of everyday metal.

This groundbreaking album leans mostly on its seamless and incredibly high quality execution. The synthesizers create haunting soundscapes on the background with the riffs lumbering forwards ponderously, alternating with careful melodies (acoustic and not) and well planned solos.

The music has some definite ethnic flavors to it, and the keyboards often nearly dominate the soundscape, and do so in the many quiet passages of the album, creating a dreamy mood for the album. Not to mention his lyrics which several times underline the ethreal with refrences to drugs, like Psilocybe mushrooms and Jimsonweed. This particular type of reference will be even more prominent on their (his) next album A Deeper Kind of Slumber, albeit with slightly more alarming references to Heroin.

The vocals of Johan Edlund range from his (slightly lisping) death metal reminscent growl familiar from Astral Sleep and Clouds, over quiet croons and clear vocals to spoken words and whispers.

There is little I can say about this album that has not been said before, but I'll try adding the last few bits.

If you have any kind of interest in metal, this is an album you must have before you can call your collection complete, and if you have any kind of appreciation for Pink Floyd I recommend this album for you, to hear how Pink Floyd would have sounded - had they been a metal band.