ALBUM REVIEW: Abyssal Arcana – Draven
The coffin door of DRAVEN, the altar-ego used by Greek horrorsynth composer Deamien Raven, has swung open, spewing forth into the night their debut album, Abyssal Arcana.
From its very beginning this record plays out like some kind of demented musical. Its opening track Forgive Me Father is a recording of two voices playing out a scene of confession, while varying levels of distortion are added. The music begins in the second track, The Horrifying Autopsy Of Deamien Raven. To sum up the style, imagine taking the soundtracks from the old Castlevanias, sprinkle it with the atmosphere from Silent Hill 2, then fire it all through a synthwave lens and you’re getting close.
Cauchemar Noir’s intro sounds like what the soundtrack to the first Halloween movie might have sounded like had it been made in the 90s by an alternate universe’s John Carpenter who had gone fully goth some time before. That being said, the back half of the track drops into some seriously crunchy CARPENTER BRUT-style bassline grit, but the inclusion of the theremin (while definitely spooky) may well just spray a little hint of cheese onto the final product.
Silver Coffin is much more serious. Hitting like some of PERTURBATOR’s best, it’s a goosebump-inducing slab of boss-encounter worthy terror. This is only cranked up going into Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, which steps up the tempo and adds a stern thickness to the already meaty bassline. Bloodgod, which features darksynth artist DAV DRALLEON, is a considerably more murky affair than the previous tracks. While short and sweet, it can best be described as what the intention was behind the early Doom soundtracks, had the technology been available. It’s muscular, bloodthirsty and thoroughly engaging.
Demonic Incantation Blues, surprisingly, is not bluesy at all. Instead it is a low smoulder of murky atmosphere that breaks out into a hyper-dramatic stretch of erratic, thumping bass and histrionic keys. As the madcap, semi-autobiographical horror-opera that we are submerged in reaches its narrative zenith, we are confronted with Impalement And The Brazen Bull. Given its title, the intensity that you might have expected is actually suspiciously absent, but that is likely because it has been saved for the mission statement, A Horrorsynth Symphony. This title isn’t given lightly. Within its runtime, we find a fine example of what DRAVEN are setting out to achieve; crisp beats, buzzsaw bass and enough old-school horror tropes to have your hair standing on end. Tremendous stuff.
Roping in another renowned darkwave artist, The Conjuring (feat. CONNÖR) is a spine-chilling thriller of a track, trading off sporadic segments of driving electronic heaviness against some of the album’s most dramatic moments. Oftentimes guest musicians can do more harm than good to the tracks they appear on, but this is far from the case here. The strength of the material is such that upon listening to it, you may well find yourself hoping against all hope that we see more collaboration between these two in the (hopefully) not-too distant future.
The Intimate Portrait Of The Devil opens on a masterclass in cinematic atmosphere, with a piano line that will harken back to your Goosebumps-devouring childhood. It then blossoms into a dancefloor banger that would likely never be far from the turntables of whoever was DJ’ing at the club from Blade. Conjuring up images of Strahd Von Zarovich hammering away at his organ in its opening moments, Le Vampire Du Grand Guignol could arguably be Abyssal Arcana’s standout track. It’s got lashings of DRAVEN’s trademark creepiness but also strips back to some of the sharpest, most chainsaw-like synth lines he’s produced yet. The whole track is both luridly decadent and murderously heavy in equal measure, which must be a fitting tribute to grand vampires everywhere.
Exsanguinated With A Drill is both the name of the final track and what you will feel has happened to you after you’ve finished with it. It pushes the ever-present horror tropes slightly out of the main purview in favour of the grievous weight of those punishing synths. It hits like a drillbit through the temple and just leaves you wanting more.
In summation, Abyssal Arcana is a great time. It’s creepy but not in a shock-tactics fashion; genuine thought has been put into this and the result is something that brings to mind all the best parts of the darker end of popular culture, splattering them like fresh blood across some of the sharpest and most engaging synthwave that has emerged for quite some time, making for truly hair-raising fun.
Rating: 8/10
Abyssal Arcana is out now via self-release.
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