Rapture

Rapture is what you get when a group of legitimately talented musicians attempt emulating a sub-genre they know absolutely nothing about save for the most basic, rudimentary trappings. A few admittedly killer moments through no conscious effort on the band's part alongside mountains of forced vitriol, all neatly confined into the symphonic black metal template. Dragonlord bangs the tracks out as swiftly as possible, slaps some corpsepaint on and calls it a day. Hey, the kids won't be able to tell the difference, right?

The funny thing is, Peterson and his crew somehow manage to play it way too safe, essentially replicating the Testament formula of the time with a slight dissonant edge to the melodies. This might sound amazing to some, but trust me, Dragonlord isn't the American answer to Dimmu Borgir you may be hoping for. If anything, this is closer to Old Man's Child, as there is an obvious emphasis on the cascading riffs and Peterson's tortured wails as opposed to mountains of orchestration. The band tries so strenuously to craft a diabolical atmosphere, but their effort is largely in vain, Livingston's hokey keyboard lines all but assure that.

After a pretty tawdry keyboard-driven instrumental opener (always gotta have that, right?) the band segues into the staggering, amorphous mess that is "Unholyvoid". The listener might as well be riding on a merry-go-round at this point, because that is exactly the ambiance summoned by the twinkling keys. Peterson does his best Dani Filth impersonation in a vain effort to maintain the extremity of the whole ordeal as the guitars aimlessly plod away in the background. The song desperately tries to regroup after the cleanly-picked middle break, but everything implodes in on itself yet again. Other than some great nebulous lyrics in the Limbonic Art vein (which are sadly never revisited throughout the rest of the album), it's a complete waste of energy and talent.

This pattern generally repeats itself ad nauseam throughout the majority of Rapture. Peterson is still a very skilled guitarist, so we get a decent thrash break here, a head-bouncing verse there, but nothing approaching the incensed abhorrence Dragonlord is truly aiming for. "Tradition and Fire" picks up at about three minutes in, but it sure takes it's damn sweet time getting there. The only major exception to this depressing routine is "Wolfhunt", during which we find the band striking the magic formula - albeit through no conscious effort on their part. It's concise, dials the keyboards back, and contains a scorcher of a main riff. In "Wolfhunt" one can truly see what Dragonlord are capable of, but what else can it do but serve as a monument to frustration?

The rest is rather scattershot regarding variety, with the occasional cleanly-sung passage and some admittedly cool screeching wails during the title track. On the whole, Peterson's blackened yowls are at least tolerable, getting the venomous point across without becoming tiring or distracting. Regardless, the true highpoint regarding the performances is Allen's acrobatic delivery on the kit. As the rest of the band purposelessly wanders about, he is in his own little world, dominating the drums akin to an octopus on LSD. It helps distract the listener from the lack of potency elsewhere, but only for so long. Even DiGiorgio's normally outspoken and vehement bass is buried, only peeking above the surface during the intro of "Wolfhunt".

I suppose that fans of Spiritual Black Dimensions might find something of value on Rapture, as Livingston has no problem emulating Mustis' cornball delivery on the ivories. Even at that, the keyboards aren't nearly prominent enough to satiate the average fan of that bombastic style, so Dragonlord finds themselves uncomfortably stretched over the stylistic abyss - and their wings have been clipped.