Something gloriously unexpected happens once you leave the safety of your comfort zone behind. Setting sails for new adventures and new horizons is also what Tom Englund of Swedish melancholic metal masters Evergrey and renowned classical pianist Vikram Shankar are doing. Their mutual brainchild Silent Skies is like an ocean of melancholy, a sublime tapestry on which they project their gentle, breezing, touching cinematic music. Scandinavian melancholy is more than just a cliché in the loud and drastic world of rock and metal. It’s a tangible, omnipresent state of mind, buried deep within every soul in the Northern Hemisphere. On their soaring, expansive new album “Dormant”, transatlantic duo Silent Skies shows what’s at the very core of melancholic music once you delete distorted guitars and expressive drumming: a nucleus of piano-driven, orchestral, shimmering sounds reminiscent of the darker shades of cinematic music, married to the coursing energy of 21st century electronic music and the wistful visions of Ólafur Arnalds. So beautiful it makes you cry. So painful it makes you heal.