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 pop 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.

Everything began a few years back when Englund stumbled across one of Shankar’s piano renditions of an Evergrey song. “I instantly realized that he understood what Evergrey was all about,” Englund says. “I don’t think we would have ever worked together were it not for this.” Shankar has been an Evergrey fan ever since his high school days. “They are part of my musical DNA,” the artist from North Carolina states. “I listened to them for years and years. The way they made music influenced my way of writing and playing, too. When Tom and I are making music, I instantly know what he wants to say. We speak a common musical language. We both want to express that which touches us profoundly. Only then,” the pianist says, “music can truly move others.”

“Dormant” indeed is a moving affair. Yet, it’s so much more than Evergrey-esque tunes set to piano, cello, samples and subtle percussion. “Our music allows you to get to a state of calmer breathing,” says Englund. “To reflect, to take time for yourself. To me, this is just as heavy as heavy metal. We just took away the distorted guitars and the drums.” His virtuosic friend nods in agreement. “I have always been interested in capturing heavy music with my piano. I have been doing piano arrangements of metal songs for a decade now and I have always loved how a piano can stage a whole metal song – with the deep percussive low end and the high shimmering keys. If the listener is willing to take a leap of faith with us, they will discover a lot of kindred spirit between this and metal music.”