Beats and yelling: Draculum

Poems of Spellcraft
Out 24^th October on Chaos Records

The debut album from this German entity draws on a thread of UK black metal (such as it is) most infamously expressed by Cradle of Filth and Hecate Enthroned, later by Old Corpse Road and A Forest of Stars. Histrionic, gothic, and unconcerned with what the listener may regard as “good taste”. Which is basically a roundabout way of saying it’s a bit silly. But silliness is a state of mind, and whilst ‘Poems of Spellcraft’ is not short on eyebrow raisers (the lyrics to the closing track ‘1914 A Spell (An Excellent way to get a Fairy)’ had me creased), if you approach it from a certain angle it’s a subtle, refined, and creative work of gothic infused black metal. The music feels free, it dares to wander around, open out ideas, throw in random licks for the sheer joy of it whilst simultaneously articulating extended narrative threads. A refreshing experience in the current landscape of overly curated, controlled, and sterilised exercises in aesthetic specificity.

The production is relatively modest. Whilst certainly sharper than something like the ‘Principle of Evil Made Flesh’, the austerity and rawness of the keyboard lines calls to mind Cradle’s debut nevertheless. The dry organ tone acts as additional instrumentation to hammer home certain riffs as opposed to simply providing texture and depth within the mix. The guitar lines are raw and immediate, yet the tone is such that they can still convincingly deliver doom laden drones.

Tracks start from a place of lyricism, the histrionic vocals mirroring the contours of traditional song despite the distorted tone. Guitars follow suit by setting the scene through simple folky refrains, before stretching out into broad, brushstroke melodic lines that open out the landscape, presenting the themes in a wider context. The drums mirror the energies of the guitar lines, bolstering their performance whilst never fully interfering themselves. Aesthetically they are perhaps the most retro element of the mix, adopting that reverb drenched sound that so many 90s extreme metal albums deployed as a way to place the drums into context without allowing them to domesticate the overall presentation.

‘Poems of Spellcraft’ is a clear, conceptually driven piece of narrative extreme metal, and presents as such to the listener. But it also manages to sound like a band playing off one another, each instrument is given a chance to shine whilst being just as capable of marrying up to drive home a particular bridge or crescendo. The production does justice to the lavish, orchestrated colouring of the music and the intention behind it, but it retains a rawness and immediacy, the vital energy of musicians conjuring artistry in the moment. It’s this transparency in both the production and performances which affords us the chance to pick apart the different elements and enjoy them from a technical and intellectual perspective, just as it allows us to hear the music in its totality as a creative, carefree work of melodramatic black metal.