Draconian - Under A Godless Veil review
| Band: | Draconian |
| Album: | Under A Godless Veil |
| Style: | Gothic doom metal |
| Release date: | October 2020 |
01. Sorrow Of Sophia
02. The Sacrificial Flame
03. Lustrous Heart
04. Sleepwalkers
05. Moon Over Sabaoth
06. Burial Fields
07. The Sethian
08. Claw Marks On The Throne
09. Night Visitor
10. Ascend Into Darkness
A change of personnel seems to have worked nicely for Draconian; Sovran reversed their seemingly downward trajectory, and this record should cement that change in direction.
Draconian's early work, particularly Arcane Rain Fell, counts among some of the most beloved work in the Gothic doom subgenre, to the extent that even I, someone who is not typically drawn to that sound, finds a lot to like in said material. There seemed to be a hint of diminishing returns with subsequent releases, however, culminating in Lisa Johansson leaving the group after A Rose For The Apocalypse. Her replacement, Heike Langhans of :LOR3L3I: and other projects, made a solid first impression on 2015's Sovran. The five years following that album were the longest the band have gone without putting out a record, but 2020's Under A Godless Veil makes good on the promise of Sovran.
Although I'm not intimately familiar with the group, I don't think fans of Draconian will find too much to be surprised by on this album; predominantly slow-mid speeds, female cleans/male growls trading off from each other, gloomy riffs with force behind them, and atmospheric, cleaner segments. The formula's not markedly altered, but it's delivered to a high standard with the level of conviction one would expect from Draconian, resulting in solid early cuts on the record such as "Sorrow Of Sophia", "Lustrous Heart" and "Moon Over Sabaoth". If there's one complaint I could offer towards Under A Godless Veil, I feel like a number of the tracks could have run a minute or two shorter; not that they necessarily drag to the point of me seriously losing interest, but some of the momentum they build starts to dissipate before all is said and done. Obviously, Draconian are no strangers to pulling off fantastic long songs (hell, they wrote "Death, Come Near Me"), but they're very capable when trying their hand at shorter tracks, including with "Night Visitor" on this album. It's by no means a dealbreaker, but I feel like a handful of tracks here slightly overstay their welcome, with "The Sacrificial Flame" one in particular that could have been condensed.
For the most part, I find Under A Godless Veil to be a solid listen without too many overly memorable moments, at least in its early stages, but of the first half-dozen tracks, "Sleepwalkers" most reliably grabbed my attention during my first few playthroughs; predominantly muted, it has a memorable pre-chorus where clean guitar and atmospheric drumming is accompanied with muted, distant growls before a stirring Langhans/Anders Jacobssen chorus duet. Like others as already mentioned, this track arguably pushes its runtime to or just beyond the limit, but it has some quality moments in it.
However, although "Sleepwalkers" usually managed to remind me that I was listening to the record during the first couple of listens, in terms of grabbing the listener's attention it has nothing on "The Sethian", a simply stellar cut that I would be genuinely surprised to not see become widely considered as one of the standout songs from the album. On a record that rigidly stays in the slow lane, something with the relative level of energy that this song brings is already going to make an impact (I mean, it's not fast, but it picks things up a bit), but they back up that elevated intensity with some spellbinding music, from the atmospheric, tom-heavy drumming early on, through to the buzzing tremolo and thunderous percussion that announces the chorus. The enchantment that Langhans gently singing above this crashing storm casts is so potent that it frankly makes me slightly frustrated that Gothic doom doesn't more regularly instil this level of passion in me.
As far as I'm concerned, "The Sethian" sits proud at the top of the pile of the songs that comprise Under A Godless Veil, but it doesn't completely outshine every song, with closer "Ascend Into Darkness" in particular delivering plenty to be impressed by. Without remotely wanting to discredit the first half of the album, the combination of these two songs, and to a lesser degree the duo of tracks in between, really makes Under A Godless Veil a bottom-heavy album. However, if you want to leave a good lasting impression, ending an album strongly is as good a way to do it as any.
Time will tell what those more keen on this sound think, but whilst I don't feel like this will be the crowning glory of the band's career, it's a very strong effort and should provide respectable competition to Paradise Lost's Obsidian for the title of being the best 2020 has to offer in Gothic doom.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 8 |
| Songwriting: | 8 |
| Originality: | 6 |
| Production: | 8 |
Comments
- 1
- 2
| Bad English Tage Westerlund Posts: 61012  |
I like Sovran, Heike came powerful, but Lisa era was underated old school, so I like boat, even Lisa era was death/doom to me. I doint give high hopes, IMO band cant jump higher as Sovran was specially Rivers Between Us and Staller Tombs songs. Unless there are old demo recordings what can be re recoird whit Heike
---- I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens. Stormtroopers of Death - ''Speak English or Die''  apos;'[image] I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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| The Melting Snow Posts: 615  |
Interesting review. My only problem with it is that it isn't written by a person who is an avid Gothic/Doom Metal fan. From the 4 songs I've heard so far, there are obviously bits and pieces that would appeal to a Gothic Doom fan more than to someone who doesn't actively listen to this kind of music. Secondly, 6 for originality? This is Draconian through and through. They "invented" this sound, and I'd love them to always stick to it. But then again, if a person who isn't a die-hard fan of this sound is giving it an 8, that could mean this is a pretty special album.
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| DarkWingedSoul Posts: 1180  |
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| musclassia Staff Posts: 7041  |
Written by The Melting Snow on 28.10.2020 at 07:03 Honestly, the originality scores for these kinds of albums are tricky (same as the Mors Principium Est album I reviewed a few days ago). On the one hand, yes Draconian were a major progenitor in the style, so they were involved in making this sound originally. On the other hand, there's nothing particularly new here compared with what Draconian or other bands in Gothic doom have done for the past 20-odd years, so how can it be an original-sounding release? It's not meant to be any kind of detraction of this release - I have no concerns about its originality, and I doubt anyone listening will, but at the same time I don't see how it can quality for an '8' in originality like the commenter below you suggested if it's not doing anything particularly new. Like you said, it's Draconian through and through, it's not a major departure of any type. As far as it being reviewed by an avid Gothic/Doom metal fan - unfortunately, given that DerRozzengarten/KwonVerge hasn't written a review here in 8 years, we're rather short-staffed on those in the reviewer team (although the last time he reviewed a Draconian album, he gave A Rose For The Apocalypse a 6, so there's no guarantee that a diehard genre enthusiast would've given this a more glowing review). In his absence, from what I can tell, I probably am more of a Draconian follower/appreciate than the rest of the other current official reviewers. However, I'm sure diehard fans of the band will likely prefer this to me, although diehard fans of bands typically rate albums higher than more impartial reviewers do unless it's a major disappointment, which this album isn't.
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| DarkWingedSoul Posts: 1180 |
Thanks for taking the time for replying - its a subjective matter however, we could discuss and discuss - for me a band with an original sound - even if created 20 years ago - its ok, we cannot expect them to create something new with each release. if they stick to their style and they are doing it good - for me its ok...maybe the originality scoring is outta place 
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| musclassia Staff Posts: 7041 |
Written by DarkWingedSoul on 28.10.2020 at 11:22 I think for some albums it's a fairly irrelevant score to be honest, and one that I struggle to judge appropriately; if a band has an established sound that they helped to establish, they don't necessarily need to change it. Amorphis have made very simliar-sounding albums for the past 15 years, but I absolutely love that sound and they manage to write fresh and exciting songs using it without needing to substantially revamp their approach. Same here, Draconian led the way in Gothic doom, if they stick to it but continue to do it well, as they do here, there's no reason to be concerned about its novelty in terms of style, and I doubt there are going to be many people listening to this and thinking 'I can't enjoy this because it's not original'. The big issue is if the band sticks to the same sound but stops finding a way to make it sound interesting (e.g. Lamb of God's album from earlier this year). The originality score is a lot more useful for less known/never bands, to highlight whether they're derivative of more established acts (such as Draconian in Gothic doom) or if they're managing to do something to set themselves apart from the rest. I'm happy to bump up the score to a 7 here if lots of people have issue with it, but from my perspective I just don't think it's anything anyone needs to be concerned about with this album - I don't think anyone invested in Draconian was expecting a radical reinvention in the band's approach, they just want them to continue writing good material like they did on Sovran, and in my opinion they do that very well here.
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| nikarg Staff Posts: 7052  |
Draconian invented nothing. The gothic doom sound was there long before they showed up. And this sound has been around for three decades and has been done to death so a 6 for originality is actually high, not low. Unoriginal does not mean bad, of course. As far as writing reviews while not being an avid fan of a certain style is concerned, I am not sure how this affects the quality of the review itself. I haven't listened to the album since it is not out yet, but the review gives me a good idea of what to expect along with the reviewer's opinion on it. And this is what I am expecting from a review. If we focus too much on the numbers, we lose the point which is the text. Ratings are mostly arbitrary anyway. I am sort of a fan of gothic doom myself and I could have written this review but with very few exceptions I find Draconian really boring and unoriginal (oh yes) so I was very happy that someone else claimed it. And he did a very good job at that too.
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| DarkWingedSoul Posts: 1180 |
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| RaduP CertifiedHipster Staff Posts: 8630  |
Written by DarkWingedSoul on 28.10.2020 at 11:55 It is.
---- Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking One day there will be no heart at all?
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| Bad English Tage Westerlund Posts: 61012 |
Even he is not doom metal fan, review is well written. Good quality, language, aspects. Good to read. But problem was you could look a bit deeper in gothic doom history and old bands to compare whit out paradise list what creates death doom.
---- I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens. Stormtroopers of Death - ''Speak English or Die'' apos;'[image] I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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| Dark Forever Ruído Sonoro Posts: 699  |
Written by nikarg on 28.10.2020 at 11:53 I agree they were not THE pioneers. But "long before" is a bit of a stretch, they've been around since 1994 and released their first demo in 1997. You won't find earlier Gothic/Doom material unless you're talking about those who truly pioneered it, like Paradise Lost or My Dying Bride (and even those, you just have to go back 3 or 4 years).
---- Taste the DARK... ... and you'll live FOREVER!
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| Flat Posts: 3 |
I like the review and actually agree on the topic of originality. The songs which are out are not particularly "original" and I would leave the score at "6". However, just to be a devil's advocate -> how the originality score is defined? If sticking to "non-original" sound is a good thing, shouldn't be score high then? (this is of course a joke, not an opinion) Anyway, I've heard the first half of the album which appeared on the youtube and I like two songs and love the other three ones. I would buy no matter what quality the rest of the album has and here I read that the second half is even better. I am really looking forward for the album release
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| JoHn Doe Posts: 4886  |
Written by Dark Forever on 28.10.2020 at 14:07 and then one wonders who and how many people listened to their 90s demos? Theatre of Tragedy were popular in the 90s. Also The Gathering's debut album Always was well known, ToT had many imitators. So it's not just Paradise Lost and MDB.
---- I thought the two primary purposes for the internet were cat memes and overreactions.
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| nikarg Staff Posts: 7052 |
Written by Dark Forever on 28.10.2020 at 14:07 As JoHn DoE already said, Theatre Of Tragedy and The Gathering were there before. Off the top of my head I will add Katatonia, Celestial Season, Saturnus, On Thorns I Lay, even Anathema had gothic in their death doom days. All these bands released albums "long before" Draconian, and these albums were successful. Draconian released their first full-length in 2003. Look, I don't mean to be a jerk but nowadays we look on the internet and find that x band released y demo all those years ago and we think "wow, they were there from the beginning". No they weren't, I am sorry. Those demos were listened by a handful of people back then, so they cannot have invented anything or influenced anyone. In any case, my initial comment was made to point out that they did not "invent" the style, as this is what was said by another user. Whether Draconian were quick to jump on the bandwagon or not, that's another discussion.
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| Enemy of Reality Account deleted |
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| Troy Killjoy perfunctionist Staff Posts: 21306  |
Originality =/= quality. Plenty of stuff I rate 8+ can easily be described as derivative and unoriginal, but as long as the songwriting makes up for it, then that's what more significantly impacts my overall rating. People will always cry over "low" ratings of their favorite bands, and Draconian is a popular band, so the tears will be ocean-sized soon enough. Then again, someone who writes a scathing review of Nightwish would already know that.
---- "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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| Troy Killjoy perfunctionist Staff Posts: 21306 |
Written by nikarg on 28.10.2020 at 14:36 You mean you weren't streaming Draconian tape recordings with your dial-up internet connection?
---- "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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| musclassia Staff Posts: 7041 |
I really wish I'd just given it a 7-8 in originality at this point lol Written by Guest on 28.10.2020 at 14:53 Yeah, Arcane Rain Fell was always the album of theirs that I'd return to if I wanted a Draconian kick; the ones after were okay but I didn't approach Sovran with much expectation, however it had some really solid songs on there. I think this is similar in quality; a few songs do drag a bit before they're over, but there's no duffers, and a couple of real top-notch ones in The Sethian and Ascend Into Darkness (hoping other people feel similarly positively about those two when the album comes out)
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| nikarg Staff Posts: 7052 |
Written by Troy Killjoy on 28.10.2020 at 15:33  No, I am afraid not.Streaming was non-existent when Draconian were releasing demos. There was limited downloading though (via ftp), and soon after there was proper file sharing (Napster, Limewire, etc.). To give you an idea, in order to download one mp3 at 128kbps quality, you needed about 20 minutes with a dial-up connection. You can imagine that even if the Draconian demos were available somehow online, they wouldn't be anyone's first choice for downloading. Most of us were downloading the shit out of Metallica to piss off Lars. Written by Guest on 28.10.2020 at 14:53 An 8.0 is very good in Metal Storm's book, too.
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| The Melting Snow Posts: 615 |
Written by musclassia on 28.10.2020 at 10:55 pick me, pick me!
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| nikarg Staff Posts: 7052 |
Written by The Melting Snow on 28.10.2020 at 16:27 We would love to pick you but you have to start writing first as a guest This is how we all started.
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| Dark Forever Ruído Sonoro Posts: 699 |
Written by JoHn Doe on 28.10.2020 at 14:17 I did listen to them, but I admit, not many. Also, I didn't say PL and MDB were the only ones or that Draconian were among the most influential bands at the time, just that they were writing Gothic/Doom material since 1994 when few bands were doing it.
---- Taste the DARK... ... and you'll live FOREVER!
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| X-FrEaK Posts: 281  |
Metalheads discussing about originality...thats cute. Then they praise Cannibal Corpse, Slayer or Deicide lulz. From the songs they released so far, it looks really promising (although surpassing Sovran will be next to impossible), also comparing with Katatonia and Paradise Lost and Anathema is fine and dandy, but none of them had a main female vocalist even in their death doom days
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| The Melting Snow Posts: 615 |
Written by X-FrEaK on 29.10.2020 at 14:18 my thoughts exactly. I don't really understand why people compare those bands. I see no similarity at all between Draconian and Anathema/Paradise Lost/Katatonia. It's like people who don't listen to metal say all metal sounds the same, my feeling is if someone says Draconian sounds like any of those bands, it probably means the guy hasn't properly heard any of them. I don't see the similarity with Theater of Tragedy either to be honest. I adore Aegis as an album, the other album I've heard more of is their last one and first 2 ones. Nothing like Draconian in there. Before you label me as a fanboy, I am not saying Draconian is better than any of them, I'm just saying I don't see the similarities.
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| Daniell _爱情_ Elite Posts: 6061  |
Draconian... Always solid, never great. Good to hear they didn't drop the ball this time either.
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| musclassia Staff Posts: 7041 |
So I don't really understand why for a near-800 word review which doesn't mention originality once, the whole discussion in the resulting thread has been centred about one mini-score, but I'm listening to the album for the first time since I wrote the review, and if anyone fancies making a compelling case as for why an album that contains songs as typical for the genre as The Sacrificial Flame, Moon Over Sabaoth and Claw Marks On The Throne is so innovative that 6/10 for originality is such an injustice as to necessitate this level of discussion, please go ahead. One guy in the album thread is trying to argue that they've implemented post-rock elements here (apart from perhaps Ascend To Darkness, I'm not sure what they're referring to, and I'm not going to uprate the originality on a 10-track album for 1 song, particularly since putting shimmering tremolo on top of doom riffs has been done before), and that they've used guitars more than keyboards (they mention using guitar effects and playing techniques, but I don't hear any of those that stand out of place, except for perhaps the tremolo bits in The Sethian and Ascend To Darkness, the two songs I waxed lyrical over), and as such it's very original. I mean, yeah, The Sethian and Ascend To Darkness are great tracks, but I mentioned them as standouts in my review, and they're only 2 out of 10 songs here. It's an album that for large portions has slow, dense, doomy riffs, airy clean guitar melodies to provide atmosphere, clean/harsh vocal interplay, occasional guitar solos and background synths, all of which I've heard plenty of times before in combination, and I don't hear anything especially unique in the way they've been implemented here; even Ascend To Darkness, with the shimmering tremolo over portions of the song, sounds pretty typical for Gothic metal as it progresses beyond that into its second half. Heike's vocal melodies are relatively distinctive for the genre on certain songs, but I don't see how that makes it an 8/10 for originality by itself. I don't actually want the focus of this review or album to be originality, as I think it's completely incidental, but if the conversation about this review is going to be dominated by that one point, I think the case for it to be a really novel album needs to be made. The point could have been one higher, I briefly fluctuated between 6 and 7 for the 20 seconds of thought I put into a part of the review that I felt was the least important bit of it, but splitting hairs over one point to this extent is frankly a bit ridiculous, and I can't see how anyone could so strongly argue giving this specific album an 8 for originality when set against the past 30 years of Gothic metal and doom metal in order to merit this level of discussion. And once again, the songs that stood out were Sleepwalkers, The Sethian and Ascend To Darkness, mainly because they're the ones that sound the least like standard Gothic doom.
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| metalbrat Posts: 868 |
Written by nikarg on 28.10.2020 at 16:17 🤣 You were downliading at 128 kbps??? Lucky you. We were getting a max speed of 16 kbps and it took a month for me to download Metallica...... I liked that part..👌
---- In the beginning I was made of clay. Then I bit the apple and they changed me to metal 🤘
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| nikarg Staff Posts: 7052 |
Written by metalbrat on 30.10.2020 at 13:04 Oh no, I meant the song's bitrate would be 128kbps (instead of 320 which has been the norm for years now). My internet speed was 14.4 back in '95 I think, then 28.8 and 56K which came later felt really f*ing fast  The most bizarre thing was that if you were online and you picked up the phone, you got disconnected from the internet. It was impossible to talk on the phone and be online at the same time. It feels to me like all this happened in another life.p.s. I had the whole Metallica disco on CD anyway but I downloaded it too out of principle
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| metalbrat Posts: 868 |
Quote: 😜😜
---- In the beginning I was made of clay. Then I bit the apple and they changed me to metal 🤘
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| chomskeet Posts: 190  |
I don't understand why there's this thing about the 6 in originality considering this album is not particularly original and a 6 actually seems pretty generous to me. That doesn't make it bad, it's just nothing new or fresh. You gave the same score for the new Mors Principium Est album which I think is one of their best and have really enjoyed, and a 6 for originality is totally fair since there isn't anything new or particularly different there either.........
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