Review by Vinny for Draugveil - Cruel World of Dreams and Fears (2025)

The internet is losing its shit over the cover of a black metal record featuring an armour-clad male in corpse paint lay on a bed of red roses, gazing wistfully into the camera lens whilst his sword is casually placed front of shot. It is an unexpected cover shot in many ways, yet it is also in keeping with the contents of the record itself. Cruel World of Dreams and Fears possesses an innate poignancy within its sound of strained melodies and catchy percussion patterns. It is very much on the south side of gaze (which is a massive positive in my book) yet at the same time is not entirely conventional in the black metal sound. Just as the album photo suggests, there are some depths to the record. “Is it AI?”, cry the internet purists. Well, I don’t possess any such detection means, so I will have to go with my own instinct instead.

The artist himself has many other projects ranging from trap metal to shoegaze. In a recent interview he said "I don't believe in rigid identities or linear artistic paths. I see every project as a vector—a path of escape,”. As the die-hards don their 1,001 nail arm bands and grab pitchforks and torches before they off marching en masse to Warsaw to demand Draugveil bathe in a vat of make up remover to banish any vestige of black metal from their being, I prefer to take a listen and understand what I can find on the album of any interest.

Amidst the clatter and batter of the percussion and the jangle of the tremolo, there sits a droning, whining and at times outright wonky guitar or keyboard melody. It invokes gothic tropes, nearing an almost new romantic appearance at times. It is an album that is unafraid of ambience also. ‘Beneath the Armor I Rot’ bristles with ethereal sorrow, the piano keys pinpointing moments of sheer beauty in what at times can be a frantic paced record to absorb otherwise. Dungeon synth influences seep into the record as well, not overdone yet not hiding at the same time either. The various elements that get deployed all do have a sense of balance about them. Yes, there are constants in the performance, but they maintain a connection for me as a listener, no individual element manages to alienate at any stage.

90’s generic black metal? Well, yes, it is guilty of that to some degree. That most certainly does not qualify it as AI generated though. Cruel World of Dreams and Fears is a good description of the reaction to this record I feel. We live in age when familiarity genuinely does breed contempt as an auto-response. A not too distant second place goes to the poking of fun and aiming humour at something that in one breath is accused of being generic yet in the other ridiculed for straying down a path of being too camp for black metal. Draugveil finds himself in an isolationist position, whether he planned it or not. Which again, is another huge irony that for all the criticism of it, the record ends up in a very black metal place still.