Arcane Rain Fell

I was introduced to Draconian years ago by a friend of mine who loves a lot of Swedish metal bands, more particularly Dissection and Watain. She noticed that I was huge into gothic metal, so she decided to play me some Draconian just to see what I think of it. She played to me a few songs on "Arcane Rain Fell" and oh how this album was amazing. Not only was this album was depressing as anything I heard before, but it showed true passion and grief that can rival one of my favorite bands Anathema. This leads me to here with my thoughts on "Arcane Rain Fell" today.

Draconian (much like every other gothic band with a female singer) is often compared to Theatre of Tragedy due to the use of the beauty of the beast vocals. However, with "Arcane Rain Fell" it was unlike anything gothic metal has ever heard. It went to the pinnacle of depression and solidified Draconian as one of the brightest lights in the genre today. "Arcane Rain Fell" remains one of my all-time favorite metal records that still sound fresh whenever I listen to it in full. It's an album that has ironically helped me through depression, anger, and hopelessness that I had felt during my darkest times in my life or in the world I'm surrounded in. Like Anathema's "Eternity", "Arcane Rain Fell" was one of those few albums that gave me chills, and even tears when I listen to the album, and this album represents Draconian at its best. At the moment, "Arcane Rain Fell" still remains as the most depressing album I've ever heard.

"Arcane Rain Fell" music is incredibly depressing. It's so depressing that it left me with tears and chills. They use melodic minor keys to leave a lot of deep feeling and that shows within the instrumentation of the keys and the guitars. Dynamically, the guitars are crushing, and sometimes don't play in order for the keyboards to set the tone for its depression. "Heaven Laid in Tears" is one such example especially when the previous track builds up this song to an emotionally powerful experience. On one of the bridges of the song, the guitars repeat its alternating notes while everything else, but the elegant keyboards take a break. While it's gothic influences are not as obvious as the likes of Paradise Lost, or Type O Negative, there was a level of atmospheric elements that make this album so unique and that is not macabre depression, but sheer darkness thanks to the key signatures used combined with sensitivity. Even if you don't consider this a gothic metal album, this is still a crushing death-doom inspired album with elements from the genre such as Anders Jacobsson's vocal approach, and the rhythms of the album. It was either depressing or disturbing for death-doom and Draconian hit new levels of depression with this album combining those crushing elements with the depressing and elegance of the atmospheric gothic keyboards and Lisa Johansson's vocals.

Despite having that label related to the cheesy beauty and the beast bands, Draconian manage to sound so unique in "Arcane Rain Fell" where Lisa and Anders were able to balance the many negative emotions associated. They took the vocal style and made it into their own thing where it wasn't just back and forth dueling between death growls and soprano singing, this was done in a tone of depression that they both have. They would do this a lot with the lyrics with rarely coming to the same conclusion until the very end. That dynamic is what makes Draconian so unique and it had reached that peak with "Arcane Rain Fell."

The lyrics of "Arcane Rain Fell" are indeed depressing as well. It hits a level of sophistication, but another thing so unique about the lyrics is the yearning for hope. Noticeably, there is that dynamic between pain and yearning between its singers Anders Jacobsson and Lisa Johansson. Anders speaks the lyrics that sound angry, and Lisa is yearning. "Arcane Rain Fell" was able to balance these two emotions without sounding without going back and forth between anger and depression. It's almost at the same league as Theatre of Tragedy when they wrote in Early Modern English. Similarly, but in a way sounds modern.

If there was one song that I would say is the most depressing song I've ever heard it would have to be "Death, Come Near Me." This 15-minute epic does not drag on but ultimately changes with the depressing key of g minor. The guitars were the sounds of crushing defeat and exhaustion, to the atmospheric keyboards that bring about complete depression. Then come Anders and Lisa's singing. Anders growls in pain, Lisa sings in sorrow nothing mattered anymore after listening to this song. It's one of the most powerful songs I've ever heard and the song that really lifts my spirits up after feeling depressed. Just the very last words are relateable, yearning for unity and even death and depressed about hatred, and the loss of humanity's innocence.

Oh, shed a tear for the loss, of innocence,
for the forsaken spirits who aches... in us.
Cry for the heart who surrenders to pain,
for the solitude of those, left, behind!

Behold the pain and sorrow of the world,
dream of a place away from this nightmare.
Give us love and unity, under the heart of night.
O Death, come near us, and give us life!

The piano that is greeted before these words are uttered is tear-jerking. It was sheer depression that really touched me as if it knew my pain.

When you look at depressing music in metal and even outside of metal most is done without any convincing sound. It takes more than just depressing lyrics for a song to sound depressing, the music has to be incredibly bleak as well. You find a lot of that in the gothic doom category like Anathema, and My Dying Bride and even a lot of DSBM like Shining and Gris who have bleak music and incredibly bleaker lyrics. However, if there is one album that I would say is the most depressing metal album musically, lyrically, and vocally altogether my answer would be "Arcane Rain Fell." This album will make you cry, angry, hopeful, yearn, and inspired by the emotional 60-minute journey you will endear. My vote for not only one of the best metal albums of the 2000s but one of the greatest gothic metal albums ever made. O, Miserable Sun.

Arcane Rain Fell was a grower for me, in that the first couple of times I endured its morose wrath I wound up feeling like a real miserable son of a bitch by the time it ended. The compulsion to drown whatever ridiculous sorrows I could conjure up in a haze of double IPAs would manifest to levels that left me inebriated. I have better things to do than ruin a pleasant sunny day by trudging through something that will render me in that sort of state I would get after being dumped, fired and drenched by a passing vehicle that just barreled through a huge puddle positioned diagonally in front of me, all on the same day. Arcane Rain Fell wasn't bringing me down because it was terrible music I should be avoiding. Not at all. It was just extremely effective in its plodding, suffocating atmosphere of misery, erasing whatever joy I had in me at the time. This would not make for a proper soundtrack to a typical porn film by any means.

After repeated revisits over time however, I was able to appreciate the quality of the music, vocals and lyrics themselves, and not just the album's capability to induce frowns and a sense of listlessness. The production is weighty and suffocating, dragging the guitars up front with the keyboards wandering around in the distance, adding a bit of cloudiness. The drum mixing works well in assisting the bleak atmosphere with a strong bass drum and a rather subdued snare, providing the melodies with an almost flowing backdrop.

I've seen Draconian's work lumped in with the whole 'beauty and the beast' scene, but for this particular effort it's arguably not really the case. The bulk of the vocals are provided by Johan's forceful growls along with occasional spoken word passages (most notably Ryan Henry's contribution during the interlude track "Expostulation"), while Lisa's sweet antidote to the ugliness only chimes in sporadically. Her presence has the effect of a blooming rosebush in front of a burnt down orphanage. This actually works to the album's advantage, resonating like a classic death/doom album from the early 1990s, and Johan's delivery is far more convincing and ferocious than the vast majority of acts utilizing the whole male / female duo approach to lyric dispensing.

As much as I'm a fan of female singing in metal (no shit), in this case the track that stands out the most for me is "The Apostasy Canticle", which possesses no female vocals whatsoever. What it does have though are these thick dreary riffs emitting a hellish vibe. Gothic doom metal at its finest. As for the rest of the album, despite its oppressive nature, it's not a collection of funeral dirges by any means, with enough tempo shifts and some double bass enhanced beastliness to keep things from lulling me into eternal sleep. Hell, "The Abhorrent Rays" is a straightforward mid-paced track practically during its entire run. You could dance to the damn thing if you wanted to make a complete fool out of yourself.

Musically the band isn't about showmanship, as the riffs throughout aren't the type that'll induce Berklee grads to cream all over the sheet music, and the overlaying guitar and keyboard melodies are somewhat simplistic in nature. The notes chosen, though, are borderline brilliant in how they capably drain the senses of any positive life affirmation, like a fucked up humidifier spouting unclean, polluted air.

The lyrics play an important role in establishing that sort of mood I get when I come home from work to discover my house in complete disarray thanks to my obnoxious toddlers while my wife yells at me for some reason. A word of caution; if you notice a cute, quiet studious Pakistani girl in class at your university, DON'T MARRY HER. A 'wolf in sheep's clothing' for sure. Anyways, the lyrics are well written and imbibed with enough old English to give off a borderline haughty air if the subject matter wasn't of such a lugubrious nature. An angel falls from Heaven, is basically pissed at God, feels like crap and wants to die. That's the gist of the album's storyline, albeit with better prose.

Arcane Rain Fell isn't the sort of thing I listen to a hell of a lot. There's certainly heavier and more miserable soul-sucking unrestrained doom out there, but I actually find this more emotionally draining than a lot of that stuff because there's just enough glimmers of light here and there throughout the album to endow the more despondent moments with an even more devastating power. The thing is, this is some good shit. Maybe there are times when a sunny day does in fact deserve a swift kick in the ass. They'll be plenty of other sunny days in the future to focus on happy crap, well, unless I die or something. Yeah, even just writing about this release is kind of a bummer. Another excuse for booze I guess (and yes, in retrospect, the reasons my wife occasionally nags at me are probably well-founded).

What an atmosphere, deranged lunacy to the morbid settings that come arie when listening to this release. You'll get a bulk of an hour's worth of darkness seemingly to be visible. As a usual mild tempo of even slower guitars, musically that peaks as its' aura is deeply tranquil, yet quite alluding to death's door. A mixture not only of just heavy duty chunks of guitar work, it's filled with other braziningly moderate musical concoctions of piano work alongside spoken word overtures that don't stagnate, they keep the vibe at their unique genre. A very well produced release where everything just is in the right place, the way a "gothic doom" sound that blissfully is great to "chill" to.

The female vocals add a little variety to just heavy throat, plus the lyrics fit deeply well into this sorrowful chain of music that needs more followers. Not enough people know about this band and their blitz with frayed ends of insanity regarding the tonality of their releases. You get it all here, except the fact that their focus is not aggression, it's an open door to the gates of eternity. Such a well played release with unique sounds coming from all over the recording. The guitars focus mainly on such moderate blends of chords and melodies which are wholly original, never copping out always seeming to be so "them."

A sure band that invests in sounds that are so mild, it makes the mind seem at ease where the darkness is vivid with lost sanity in the lyrical compositions. Not only do they invest in just a moderate form of doom, but also take pride and write about such morbidity with creativity mixed with the music that devours the souls that are lifted into eternity. I only have this one and their 2011 release, but both are exceptionally well composed with death as their venture into existence gets spewed out of your speakers hearing only that utter words of blatant intensity. There is so much to this piece of work that holds true to their own sound, missing nothing, hearing everything that is death-like.

An album that requires no expectations of anything but just their own unique metaphysics in regarding to their artistic sense of demonic love of true doom and a presence of otherworldly encounters of such divine intervention. You get it all here, the spoken words, the occur of hoarse vocal outputs, female voice present in moderation, tempos that are so desolate they seem to touch the soul with tranquillity and music that is baffling to the listener because of it's sole presence of just emotion, driven to the essence of doom with destruction rampant. The release definitely posed capitalizing on originality in songwriting occurs.

If you're into some really mellow metal thats' premonition is that of darkness when listening to, Arcane Rain Fell holds the vivid truth in their essence living up to the stock of sheer morbidity with music that's spellbinding in metal that is great to listen to when you want a break from something that is truly an epic hour of 8 tracks flowing through the forests and drastic pillars of death lurking within their own essence of it all on here. I'd say from all I've heard from this band, this one is their best one. But on all to which they've released in album form, they dominate with such an atmospheric deathly doom of dreadery. Own it, you won't regret it at all!

It is hard, at least for me, to find a genuinely good Goth/Doom album, since many bands in this particular subgenre seem satisfied in ripping off "The Peaceville Three" forever (and not doing a very good job at it, I might add). However, bands like early Theatre of Tragedy were able to go beyond the original sound set by these pioneers and release great gems before falling into oblivion (read: worthless techno, in ToT's case).

Let us acknowledge this isn't a particularly easy subgenre to write good music on, since it has a tendency of becoming stale quite fast, so it requires a healthy dose of talent and songwriting skill to create such long and dragging songs in a way that they come off exciting and moody instead of boring. Draconian is a band that undoubtedly has such skills.

I don't know if this is a concept album, but each song in here seems to tell a story in its own particular haunting way, and the lyrics are exactly one of the elements that can be compared to early ToT, though I consider them slightly more compelling here.

Production is pretty good, with the rhythm guitars packing a powerful crunch and the leads possessing a smooth, fluidic presence (and tone) that goes pretty well with the gorgeous melodies played. Keyboards are frequently used, yet never sound overbearing and you’ll notice how greatly the atmosphere is enhanced by their presence, especially when piano parts are used, like in ‘Heaven laid in Tears’ and a great solo near the end of ‘Death, Come near Me’, where it blends seamlessly into the beautiful vocal melodies, ending the album in a way that can only be described as masterful.

Drums and bass are nothing special, unfortunately, but they don’t fail. Sometimes we get a nice dose of double bass here and there, but that’s all.

As one can expect from this genre, the vocals are relatively diverse. We have a talented female singer whose voice tends to sound like an angel’s, and we have the male, growling singer. Nothing new, but I can say both are very good. Sometimes the male singer goes into a well done black metal rasp and some spoken dialogue, which I usually dislike since it sounds like he is unable to carry a normal, sung melody and instead resorts to talking when feeling tired of grunting. It’s distracting, but not bad per se (especially here).

This is one of those albums you’d better listen to at evening while watching the rain or something like it. If you don’t feel like dozing off on Filosofem, that is. Absolutely essential and entrancing Goth/Doom album.

Highlights: All songs.

Draconian’s sophomore effort was good but flawed. This album is a step up and away from their last effort shedding the bulk of the Gothic in their Goth/Doom tag and moving towards a more straight forward Doomdeath approach. The band also lost much of the 'Black Metal' riffage that they had been utilizing as well.

This is arguably the bands Doomiest effort to date and in saying that one of their best albums. There are some major flaws in this album however with the first and most flagrant being that this is almost a 100% rip off of Mourning Beloveth's sound entirely. Most of the guitar riffs are borrowed from the Irish Doomsters. This wouldn't be a problem if they had made it their own, but alas, they didn't.

The production is better than the bands first release. The guitars are monstrous, heavy and depressing. There are long dirges with melodic and sorrow filled leads weaving their way in and out of the various passages. The guitars are also heavier on this than on the last album.

The bass follows the guitars but this works for the sound the band is working with. The drums are pretty good but not as creative as on later releases. The keyboards are one of the saving graces as they fill in the cracks.

The vocals are, as usual, outstanding. Both male and female vocalists showing why they are the ones holding microphones. The lyrics are in the same vein as the previous release but perhaps better/deeper.

Over all, this is a pretty good album, it does tend to drag in places (especially the spoken word track) and the lack of originality is apparent. Draconian has a problem with releasing even numbered albums as so far the odd numbers are much better and original. Still, for its short comings you could do much worse.

And so it was that a rain fell from the sky, in a grey, wooded area. The mammals that usually stirred within the lush, green woods were not to be seen on this day. Deeper in the woods still, where trees block out any measure of sun and all but a few rain drops, sit six entities, all of whom come together to form a single being; Draconian. This being, a child of great bands such as Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, and Anathema. These bands being gods of their genre, have had many children, and have opened the way for sombre musicians all over the world. Yet these gods are tired, with bloodshot eyes and grey hair, many of them have changed their sound in order to adapt with the times, or are caught up in the tempest of natural musical evolution. Enter Draconian, the forgotten peasant son, who has heard the calling and is ready to take the ebon throne for his own. The path is long, depressing, and at times exhausting, yet with his weapon "Arcane Rain Fell", I believe he has succeeded.

Draconian, a doom/death metal band from Sweden, have taken the long tired subject of sorrow, and have breathed new life into it. I consider myself to be somewhat of a connoisseur of the doom/goth/death hybrid of metal, and it's no secret that many believe My Dying Bride's opus "Turn Loose the Swans" to be the breadwinner of the genre. It's an intense album for sure, but in a move of unprecedented blasphemy Draconian have taken, with trembling hands, the thorny doom crown. "Arcane Rain Fell" is the best doom/death metal out their today. Why? Because it does exactly what the genre says, it dooms you. It will make you see the pettiness of existence, the futility of hope, and the darkness that awaits near the frayed strings of death. Granted, many albums do this, but "Arcane Rain Fell" is so grand and authentic, that it makes child killers cry.

It's probably appropriate that this album begins with the sound of rain fall leading into "A Scenery of Loss". This song shows off one of the main features of the album, spoken word passages. These passages take more than just a few cues from John Milton's "Paradise Lost", and really fit in with the overall concept of the album, the fall of Lucifer. The strings on this album literally weep through your speakers, with only the deep voice of Anders Jacobsson to interrupt, and actually enhance, the mood. His is a raw, deep growl that is trademark within the doom/death genre, but his intensity at times is remarkable. His voice literally cuts through the air on "The Apostasy Canticle" as he spits out line after line of frustration and blasphemy.Yet his is not the only voice on the album. Lisa Johansson, Draconian's female backing and fairer half, almost makes the album on may occasions. Surprisingly she is utilized few times, and those few times are at the most crucial and effective moments. This is not Lacuna Coil ladies and gents, her voice is no gimmick. The ethereal feeling surrounding "Heaven Laid in Tears" is unmatchable thanks to her, and her dramatic entrance in the aforementioned "A Scenery of Loss" is shockingly effective. So here we have the voices in "Arcane Rain Fell". A tortured poet, a sorrowful maid, and an omnipresent narrator. Oh but that isn't all the album has to offer. Not by a long shot.

The instruments on display here are used so effectively that it's almost ridiculous. And really, the ridiculous part is that they are so simple. Every instrument does exactly what it has to do, they're underachievers. The melodies are (of course) drenched in misery, as seen in "Daylight Misery" and "The Apostasy Canticle". There are no out of place solos (there are no solos actually) and neither guitar ever steps out of line for the sake of flashiness. What's there to say about the bass, really? It's the thunder in the background, the foundation upon which this burning palace lays. Like any good bass should be, it is audible, yet kept in the back. The drums, like the guitars, are simple. They are a faint heart beat in this dying body, and never speed up or slow down to accommodate the atmosphere. They stay exactly where they should, along with the keys. Really, whats doom metal without keys? Some would argue not doom metal at all, however the keys do not make the songs here, they merely enhance them, being the sad sounding instrument it can be. Sure, occasionally they take the spotlight to further drive you down into misery, but these moments do not happen often, so the keys never feel forced upon the listener. Simplicity is commonplace on this album, and it works so very nicely. Why use a rocket launcher to assassinate a king, when a simple dagger hidden in the sleeve is an effective, and overall shieker way to get things done.

On an album like this there is no room for filler tracks, and trust me when I say there are none. Every track is a monument to misery, and yet one may be surprised to learn there are few tracks that go over the eight minute mark. The songs are not extended to make the album seem more "doom" oriented. On the contrary, the songs are of perfect length, and believe me most of these songs are so depressing that eight minutes may just be too much for the soul to bear. "The Abhorrent Rays" and "The Everlasting Scar" are grade A slabs of mid-paced doom that exist to lift you up, only the to bring you back down. Every song, and pretty much the whole album, ends right when it needs to. And I'll tell you right now, it ends on a high note. "Death, Come Near Me" has officially replaced "The Crown of Sympathy" as THE doom metal song in my mind. I can't even rightly describe it, it's just so tragic. However it features an incredibly charming duet with Lisa and Anders, and both vocalists are at their most desperate in this song. This is the anthem for suicide, at an excruciating fifteen minute length, no other song in the genre comes close to it's bleak outlook.

And so there we have it. The son has defeated his fathers, and in turn, the student has become the master. Draconian have crafted the elite album in the doom/death genre. It's just crushing, there's no other word to describe it. If depression is your thing, get this album. If it isn't, you should experience it anyways. It's monumental.

"Adonai, Elohim, El-Shaddai. Thou hast become the father of lies and I serve thee henceforth...no more!"

Coming to doom metal with gothic and death influences, few albums seem to have reached the same perfection as Draconian’s second effort Arcane Rain Fell, except maybe My Dying Bride’s The Dreadful Hours but it’s another story. One hour of slow, both melodic and melancholic doom metal with low growls and the occasional touch of female vocals which should convert the most reticent to the genre (at least I hope so), that’s what it’s all about.

First let’s notice that Arcane Rain Fell is a concept album about some fallen angel, what fortunately doesn’t have too much influence on the music except for the occasional presence of the usual (and useless) narrator, which works fine when he tells one sentence or two into otherwise excellent songs, but as expected sucks when he does his own track of babbling backed by crappy sound samples and keyboards. Fortunately it happens only once, so as soon as you know you have to skip the two minutes long abortion called Expostulation you now can fully enjoy the proper music.

And man, how great it is. This album is fully guitar-driven. No orchestrations or overwhelming keyboards – those are still present, but only to add some depth to the background. It consists in slow riffs I would rather call leitmotivs as it’s the idea: sad and beautiful melodies repeated over and over again in one song. The result is simply impressive, and the genius of the band consists in never making it a single bit monotonous, by introducing subtle variations as well as occasional piano chords which add to the overall melancholic feeling. And, of course, there are the vocals.

Those who are familiar with previous Draconian works will notice that female vocalist Lisa Johansson is less present on this release that on earlier ones. Granted, growled parts had always been predominant in this band, but while they consisted in around 60% of the vocals before, they consist more in around 75% on Arcane Rain Fell. That just works fine: though I like Lisa Johansson’s voice, she could just sing a single line on some songs - that’s pretty much the case on tracks like A Scenery of Loss or The Apostasy Canticle, two massive and uncompromising ten minutes long doom anthems – I wouldn’t care as soon as that’s at the right time and at the right place. That is. In comparison to Anders Jacobsson’s deep and impressive growls, she may have never sounded so fragile, almost childish. If you only have one part to listen to, it would be this small two-verse intervention at the end of The Abhorrent Rays: genuine perfection.

And of course, even if I hate singling out too much a precise song, one can’t avoid mentioning this album boasts the fifteen minutes long epic Death, Come Near Me. There are a few songs which represent a landmark in metal history, but this one surely does, at least in the gothic/doom subgenre, that it pretty much sums up. It is actually an older tune which figured, in a rawer version, on their 2002 demo, and which has been more or less awkwardly incorporated into the story of the fallen angel, but who really cares. The first gentle semi-acoustic and orchestral, then monolithic, guitar-driven intro alone could have made it for the song, but the following ten minutes just fulfil its promises. I would compare it to Bathory’s One Rode To Asa Bay: long, slow, majestic and without any radical change of tempo or style, but at the end simply the kind of track you have to bow down to.

I know, I already said it about previous Draconian releases, but this album is the kind of masterpiece which can turn the sunniest summer day into the rainiest autumn afternoon, when the desperate poet may seek some comfort in the arms of the stone angels of the neighbouring cemetery.
“O Death, come near us, and give us life”... Death had rarely been so seductive.

Highlights: Daylight Misery, The Apostasy Canticle, Heaven Laid In Tears, The Abhorrent Rays, Death Come Near Me

This band is one of my more recent discoveries. Some of my metal
friends praised "Arcane Rain Fell" as one of the best releases of 2005. After getting acquainted to it, I can't do anything but concur.

Draconian play slow, rhythmic keyboard-layered Doom Metal featuring a deep growling vocalist as well as a very solid female voice. Bands like early Theatre of Tragedy, Anathema and My Dying Bride have clearly influenced them.

Aside bringing the usual aesthetics (sorrowful lyrics, dark concepts, pulsating rhythms) of gothic and Doom to the table, Draconian also feel a lot more brutal, in lack of a better word. The growls are uncompromised Death Metal-barks and they rely on guitar very often for a band with keyboards. This is of course all positive.

The songs are quite well balanced as they follow the Doom Metal formula by being long and occasionally repeating passages. Riffage and vocal passages remain interesting as they never overdo the repetition. Atmosphere is also often present, especially in opener "A Scenery of Loss" where we are treated to spoken passages as well as sounds of rain.

This is where newer Death/Doom bands like Rapture and Swallow The
Sun tend to fail. The music rarely displays the emotion of masterpieces like "Brave Murder Day", "The Silent Enigma" or "Rain Without End". Draconian however, have no problems conveying great feeling into their sound instrumentally as well as vocally. The female vocals are well performed and the growl also carries a lot of passion.

Conclusion: If you like Death/Doom with a Gothic influence and
strong atmosphere, you'll enjoy "Arcane Rain Fell".