NAPALM RECORDS Under A Godless Veil [VINYL]

And though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...Almost five years after their sixth longplayer Sovran, DRACONIAN once again cast their breathtaking veil of melancholy over the world. This second full-length release featuring singer Heike Langhans delivers a captivating melange of dreary doom and contrasty vocals, and mixes Heike's angelic female voice with Anders Jakobsson's death growls. The one-hour long album, graced with a haunting cover artwork by Natalia Drepina, is carrying the legacy of gothic doom metal a la My Dying Bride or Trees Of Eternity into the new decade and will drag the listener into a sorrowful cosmos right with the first notes of the spellbinding opener 'Sorrow Of Sophia' that interweaves beauty with crippling depression. After crushing slow rhythms and the fragile 'Sleepwalkers' that leads through barren soundscapes, the band - founded in Saffle / Sweden in 1994 - rises up to their best in the nine-minute long 'Ascend Into Darkness', which will echo in the listener's ears long after the final chord has died away. IG#1 "Lustrous Heart": Sadness and beauty once again go hand in hand on DRACONIAN's new album Under A Godless Veil and the first single, "Lustrous Heart", slowly unfolds the melancholic universe of doom and gothic that the band has been known for since the mid-90s. Hypnotizing melodies meet slow yet heavy guitars and deliver the soundtrack to sad and lonely spring nights.IG#2 "Moon Over Sabaoth": Starting off with a soft guitar intro, DRACONIAN's "Moon Over Sabaoth" is rising but soon breaks off into Anders Jakobsson's ghastly growls paired with a stomping doomy rhythm. Complemented by Heike Langhans' angelic voice, the vocals interweave with stunning melodies and bone-crushing riffs.IG#3 "Sleepwalkers": With their third and final single, Sweden's DRACONIAN lure the sleepwalkers and insomniacs of this world into their fragile land of atmospheric gothic doom, contrasting darkness and light, heaviness and weightlessness, soft intermezzos with smashing screams.