LithoJazzoSphere: Draconian – Dishearten
First impression: I was one hundred percent sure there will be operatic vocals. Some clever songwriting there.
I was some preconceived notions about this band because I’ve heard one track from them in the past and I did not like it enough to pursue this band further. You were totally right however, this track is indeed very different and ended up being my favourite song of the round.
Thankfully there were no operatic vocals, and more, the woman (Heike Langhans, I think?) singing here adds so much flavor to the song, she’s probably the reason this was my favourite song of the round, no question about it. The way they roll into the chorus with the three chords is massive, it’s the moments like this make me wish I could still see my favourite bands live. While ariich’s song contrasts the quiet verses with an angry, explosive chorus, this one contrasts cold and drab verses with a green and gold choruses, a sparkle of life in the autumn lifeless forest.
The ending here was very tastefully done—first they foreshadowed some wordless “ha-ah” singing from Heike and then went right back into the first stanza of the first chorus, but now sung with growls with her joining on the word “arms”—absolutely loved this. If anything, they cut the song too soon. I could maybe use another stanza with this epic ending.
My main complaint about this is the guy’s (Anders Jacobsson? Wiki has him doing “unclean vocals” which sounds dirty somehow) growls feel a little bit strained in the first half—not sure if it’s by design—however he completely slays it during the “we’re too tired to sleep” section.
Overall a cracking song. I want to listen to the album already.
Their sound underwent a bit of a shift on '08's
Turning Season Within. Nothing before then hits quite as hard for me, but that album and the others since then are all more loosely similar. Heike is on
Sovran and
Under a Godless Veil and is my favorite of their two different co-lead vocalists, though the former (and now current again) co-vocalist Lisa for the next upcoming album is great as well. I think Anders might grow on you more over time, and I'd argue he sounds even better on their most recent album UaGV.
Sovran was a central feature of my tastes morphing about a decade ago, and if I'm lucky maybe yours have been heading in a vaguely similar direction. A promising start so far for sure!
I have at least a dozen good songs for the "plummet" theme, four I'm really torn between (almost tempted to use a wildcard), but I'll wait to see what the other two themes are.
Topic: Evermind's artsy/deranged v4 Roulette - Round 2 Themes (Read 3003 times)
