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  • Daeonia - Craven

    Daeonia - Craven
    1998 Candlelight Records

    review

Daeonia - Craven

1998 Candlelight Records :: Reviewed by rofreason on 2005-08-11

Many people consider bands such as My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost "Doom" metal. I disagree, feeling that there's a much heavier gothic flavor in these bands, evoken imagery that pertains to white shirts with puffy collars, make up, vampirism, you know, all those romanticized ideals of a perfected land gone by. So, with an appropriate definition, and some compartive bands named, I'll refresh what one can expect when listening to an album such as Craven. Don't even bother with lighting, lest it be by candle, for these carefully written chords were created to squeeze the joy out of anything in life (which is where the ill-fitting "doom" reference can come in), albeit these guys probably don't have that much to be happy about anyway. Vocally, this is one sad dude, spinning yarns of things lost, things regained for a short period, things dying, etc... I think you get the picture, Daeonia just being one hell of a depressing band, except I tend to find a lot of this overblown and pompous, shattering the illusion of sincerity. Maybe these guys do crave the black, for the chord progressions are pretty damn good (I burst into tears on numerous occasions), building into some climactic sections complete double bass support (all right!). In listening to this one a few different occasions (all in different scenarios), I found that I got into the album's first few tracks, but always lost interest around the same point, Autumn (track #4). Just a little too much synth here, it's OK, but man, I could hardly hold back from the skip button. My overall impression? Reminds me of a souped up Simple Minds, and not to be heard if you have any desire to remain in high spirits. So, you're probably ready to send me hate mail right now about my refusal to claim that this is doom metal. Well, maybe I'm just a stubborn bastard, but I don't think it's doom, case closed. Write if you want to debate it further, but man, you better have some good arguments...