Review by Rexorcist for Draconian - Arcane Rain Fell (2005)

The gothic doom sound pioneered by My Dying Bride and Type O Negative would be replicated by a large portion of the gothic scene, including Draconian, who mastered the basics of the genre on the debut without much creativity attached.  Doom and gothic fans seem to love their second album, Arcane Rain Fell, so I guess this was the most exciting part of exploring their catalogue.  When I turned this on, I was hoping for a serious improvement over the original and a stone-cold classic.

It's obvious that the band is becoming more poetic with their lyricism.  There seems to be a stronger focus on the imagery of the scene they're a part of.  And thanks to a stronger idea of using faint foregrounds as atmospheric tools, such as the choral backing vocals on The Apostacy Castle, the album has a stronger effect on the listener than before.  Because of this, the emotional core of the band is a little stronger here.  The elements that made the debut album good to begin with have a stronger harmony and balance.  This also means that certain aspects are going to shine at certain times even more than they did on the last album.  It was easy for certain focal points to shine when there was less harmony, but with a stronger sense of harmony from everything and stronger skill from the band, the focal points (when given extra strength), such as the bombastic gothica of Heaven Laid in Tears or the intro's slow sludge, feel more impressive.  In other words, the band is able to recreate the last album and all of its strengths with one difference: they've become a BAND.

Having said this, there are two problems I have with this album.  First, in following completely in the vein of the last album, it also recreates the sameyness problem.  While all of the songs are enjoyable, we know what we're getting.  And the second problem is that the lady singer is severely underused.  The male is given total priority, and it's kind of a shame.  I mean, as absolutely beautiful as our ending 15-minute track is, it's same old Draconian.  So the end all be all is that this is a slight improvement over a pretty good debut, and Draconian know who they want to be which from a moral perspective is perfectly fine, but from a musician's perspective it hurts their creative prowess.