Draconian – Turing Season Within

Release date: 03-03-2008; Label: Napalm Records
By: Elvira Visser

  Draconian is a gothic doom metal band from Sweden. The band started out as “Kerberos” in 1994, founded by Johan Ericson (drums and vocals), Jesper Stolpe (bass
  and vocals) and Andy Hindenäs (guitar). They started as a death metal band,
  quite melodic with black metal influences.
  At the end of that same year Anders Jacobsson joined the band as lead vocalist
  bringing his poetic skills with him. They changed the name in to Draconian.

  Since then it has been going up and downwards with the band. Problems with
  recording demos, being discontented with the sound quality or simply aiming
  for high standards. It had brought them a path full of obstacles but the band
  kept going. Changing their sound into to a darker, slower and doomier sound.
  They are about to release their fourth studio album “Turning Seasons Within”.

  When reading the album title I had to think about diferent emotions a person
  can deal with – joy, sadness and anger, to mention a few. And that is exactly
  what this album is about. The contrast between Lisa Johanssons female classic
  voice and Anders Jacobsson’s growls take you on that level between relationships.
  Love and failing love and how people deal with these kind of situations. The
  poetic skills of Anders are shown in the lyrics and his reciting words are intense,
  sad and powerful. You will really experience the created darkness and the fusion
  of doom and gothic metal with a beautiful edge.

  Anders Jacobsson said about the personal lyrics: “Pain is a topic that
  never grows old in musical themes. Some people seem to forget that love can
  be the greatest hell you have to manage, while remaining vital to our existence.
  In this way I think that our music fits these lyrics extremely well.”

  The album starts off with “Seasons Apart,” which is very beautiful
  and takes the first melancholic step into the world of emotions. Lisa’s voice
  greets you and sings: “take my hand, follow me” and that is exactly
  what you would like to do. “Earthbound” has nice rhythmic drumming
  from Jerry Torstensson. The combination of Lisa’s angelic sound and the deep
  growls of Anders combined with tuned-down walls of darkish riffs really work
  out on this album. I definitely like the intro from “The Failure Epiphany,”
  which starts off acoustic to burst out in heavy passages, to return to the acoustic
  parts. This gives a nice variation to the track, and maybe therefore it stands
  out a bit more than the other songs. Another song that has a different approach
  to the doomy, dreamy melancholic atmosphere is “Morphine Cloud” where
  Anders recites his words at the beginning of the track. This all leads to romantic
  passages combined with Anders’ more violent screaming; thus creating a fusion
  of doom and gothic metal. The album ends with “September Ashes”, again
  Anders speaks out his words almost whispering accompanied with by piano and
  the deep sad cello sound. A perfect method to end this CD in a dramatic way.

Links:

Draconian Official