When Draconian released their debut album “Where Lovers Mourn” in 2003 they proved that they are a force to be reckoned with. The album got great reviews and left the fans and the press wanting more, myself included. Now they are back with a new album, “Arcane Rain Fell”. Draconian follows the same formula they had on their first album. For those not familiar with the band I can tell you that Draconian plays a mix of Gothic and Doom metal. Imagine a mix of Beseech and My Dying Bride and you have a pretty good idea of what they sound like.

The album starts off with a slow and beautiful track, “A Scenery Of Loss”. The first thing that strikes you is how professional the production is. Every instrument is clearly audible and the atmosphere created is very gloomy, just like doom metal should be. Very nice to listen to and easy to sink deep into the music. The keyboards enhances the music and gives Draconian a powerful and epic feel. The guitars often play harmonic leads and often bring my thoughts to My Dying Bride. But while the British doom legends writes memorable and beautiful melodies, Draconian focuses more on making all the instruments and vocals equally important. That’s perhaps their weakest point as well. None of the melodies and guitar-lines are really that memorable, except for a few interesting leads here and there. Like so many other Doom bands the drumming here is not really that exciting but it gets the job done. Just like on the debut album, Draconian puts their best two songs as the album opener and as the last track. The album closer “Death, Come Near Me” is a 15-min long epic and definitely the strongest song on the album. I’d also like to point out that the lyrics (for all Draconian songs) are very dark and well-written. Very nice and doomy album cover as well.

There are two vocalists in the band, Anders Jacobsson who handles the growls and Lisa Johansson who handles the clean vocals. The contrast between the deep growls and the beautiful female vocals are one of Draconian’s strongest points. Both are very good vocalists and put a lot of emotion into their work. I think that they should have more of Lisa Johansson’s singing though. On “Where Lovers Mourn” she had a more promiment role in the music, but not here. It would’ve given the band more variety.

“Arcane Rain Fell” is a solid album from beginning to end and sounds exactly like I had expected it to be. With so many new promising bands popping up all the time it gets more difficult to creative something unique. Draconian is not an unique band, buy they’re by all means not a bad band either. They have a distinct sound that fits their music perfectly and a clear direction of what they want to achieve, and it works. I think that their first album was better than this time around. But since they pretty much follow in the same footsteps on this album, you can’t complain. Just sit back and enjoy the beautiful music of Draconian.

Review of "The Burning Halo"

Draconian interview 2005

[This review was first published on the now defunct scandinavianmetal.info webzine]