A significant advance from their debut album,
Watercolour Days shows
Clouds plunging straight into virtuoso-style progressive rock, shedding any of their lingering psychedelic playfulness in favor of a much more brooding, serious sound.
Billy Ritchie's keyboards are the dominant instrument, even with some overdubbed orchestral accompaniment, and their more aggressive sound suits
Ritchie's and lead singer/bassist
Ian Ellis's vocal capabilities. The album's overall sound is a mix of organ-centered art rock with some of the heavy hard rock sound one expected from
Deep Purple, and it holds together amazingly well on numbers such as "Cold Sweat" and the title track. The guitar sound -- which was evident in small doses on their first album -- is missed sometimes, as it was in concert as well, but
Ellis' bass work and
Ritchie's powerful keyboard playing more than fill the gap. Indeed, hearing this album anew nearly 40 years on, it's even more difficult to understand how this trio didn't find more success than they did, especially given their reviews of the period.