Title: Sovran
Artiste: Draconian
Year 2015
Nationality: Swedish
Level: Novice
Genre: Gothic/Doom Metal
6
Expectations: I will forever be grateful to Carpe Mortem for introducing me to Draconian, during Metal Month II. Their
Arcane Rain Fell was a revelation, one of the better atmospheric metal albums I have ever heard. I note that their previous vocalist, Lisa Johansson has since departed, so I'm intrigued to see if the new singer makes that much of a difference, if this will be another masterpiece?
1. Heavy lies the crown: Well it's definitely more Doom than Gothic or even Ambient, as I found
Arcane Rain Fell to be, but the new vocalist, Heike Langhans, is a decent replacement for Lisa, and Anders Jacobsson's guttural vocals complement her clean ones very well. Good opener, epic and dark.
2. The wretched tide: The spoken word stuff on this works well. Dark and powerful, with Heike's vocals lightening the tone very slightly. Gets a little faster than you might expect for Doom Metal, guess that's the Gothic coming through.
3. Pale tortured blue: Kind of a gothic ballad,with some really nice orchestral style keys and a lovely yearning vocal from Heike.
4. Stellar tombs: Ooh, some nice female vocal harmonies on this. It's really great the way Anders always sounds angry and Heike peaceful and placating; kind of like listening to the Devil sing with an angel. Works exceptionally well. Overall though, this album is not grabbing me in any way as
ARF did. It's good, but kind of just that.
5. No lonelier star: Anders takes the lead here. I do like how though he growls it's easy to understand what he's singing. His spoken word stuff is good too. Heike makes an appearance towards the end, but it's been worth waiting for.
6. Dusk mariner: It's becoming harder for me to write about this, as much of it sounds pretty much the same. It's all good, but I just can't pick out anything specific about the later tracks. Draconian here seem to have found a formula which works, and stick to it pretty religiously, dividing the vocals pretty equally. This works well for the listener, who doesn't get too many surprises, but not so well for the reviewer, who struggles to separate track from track.
7. Dishearten: Oh, a double spoken vocal. That at least is different. And now we're getting a fast guitar solo, which is also different. Don't see any real chance of a Blue on this album though, even if it is all very good.
8. Rivers between us: As close as you'll get to a Doom ballad, with an appearance from Crippled Black Phoenix's Daniel Änghede.
9. The marriage of Attaris: The unfortunate thing is I was able to leave this playing, go out of my bedroom, go downstairs, let the cat in, come back up and know I had not missed anything. It's all great, sure, but pretty much the same generally, which is a pity.
Final result: Something of a letdown; not a bad album by any means. Quite a good one in fact, but has nothing of the fragile beauty and ethereal tenderness of
Arcane Rain Fell. Maybe that album was unique in their catalogue. Pity, as I had hoped they would be a band I could really get into, but on the strength of this, though I would listen to the rest of their discography, I wouldn't be as excited about it or as moved about it as I had originally expected to be.
Rating:
