Draconian
Turning Season Within

There are many ways to express discomfort. There are innumerable ones, and they can be refuted according to different parameters: anger, indolence, frustration, resigned contrition. All ways that together serve to reveal the pain and the state of mind associated with it.
Music, perhaps among the arts, is the most explanatory form of moods. Due to its dynamic structure and its many modes of expression, it can immerse the listener in a particular state of mind, according to each person's different inclinations, being able to rightly claim that there is nothing in "feeling" the Art more adherent to positive and negative feelings.

And so, among different music genres, there are many that "vibrate" with negativity. Slowdowns, sonic involutions, acute refrains that repeat continuously, inert archetypes like cement monoliths around which speculations about Death and related sufferings are narrated, accompanied by heaviness but also by refinement.
My opinion regarding this latest album by Draconian "Turning Season Within" is therefore this. But I don't want to stop here.

I believe this new record, delivered by this band, is a nice revenge against all those who in the past, and even with this release, it's safe to bet, will rise in accusations of "lack of originality," "boredom," "already heard," etc., etc. It could be that in the end, the opinion of all these critics of Draconian's work might be justified, while I might be entirely wrong. But I don't care. I limit myself to disputing my point of view. With some observations.

If in the previous "The Burning Halo," regarding the band's unreleased episodes, one could already glimpse a slow but inexorable march toward shores not yet completely infested and densely populated by the so-called "Dark Rock," with this new album, it seems the goal has been reached. Let us be clear. To the ear trained to this type of sound, nothing (or almost nothing) new will come.
Instead, it will be all the background contained within that will be appreciated. And this humus is immediately understood from the first listen: the ghost of Katatonia, especially. It is heard almost always and latently. Most of the heavy but fluid passages of the songs ("Earthbound," for instance), as well as a certain taste for "cascading riffs" (Seasons Apart), seem to have been adopted as a punctual trademark of the Draconian sound.
The result is exceptional. Especially if accompanied by a growl not too dark, but indeed angry and always well-calibrated, and the ever-present female voice of singer Lisa Johansson, who may not have the cut of a Liv Kristine, but has the advantage of never being pervasive in the compositions, albeit deducing that the same songs have been written "also" for her.
The rest of the band certainly doesn't just watch: all the instruments benefit from a stellar production and mixing. Well integrated with each other, reminiscent in certain passages of the martiality of Swallow the Sun, yet distinguishable and clean when necessary. And there are plenty of passages where it seems to break away from the icy, dark, and demonic swamp. It always starts with a high note from the lead guitar, repeated endlessly as in the best Doom tradition, and tries to temper the discomfort this can create thanks to the ethereal female singing, which eventually intertwines with the rough male beastly parts that bring us back to the swamp from which we had elevated ourselves for a few minutes.
The best example of the whole lot, in particular of what I've just said, is definitely "When I Wake," the most angry, yet also the most refined song of the entire lineup, and which I'm sure will delight the ears of many fans of both Gothic and a certain Doom that isn't too static.

The key to reading this album, in my opinion, is precisely this: feral and gloomy atmospheres. But not too much. Well-thought-out and extremely reasoned falls in Doom, while not proposing a mix too static and immobile. Clear influences, the usual for those who know Draconian: the already mentioned Katatonia, Swallow the Sun to remain on the topic of more or less recent innovations in Death/Doom, Saturnus concerning originality and refinement of the more ethereal episodes of the work with which it is stuffed.
Elements, all of them, that make "Turning Season Within" a great album. Not a five-star one, of course: "Arcane Rain Fell" was a five-star album, and with the sole "A Scenery of Loss" and "Death, Come Near Me," it deserved to be admitted among the fundamental albums of Doom/Gothic, but for those who are certainly not seeking masterpieces at all costs, this work could be a nice surprise to start the new year.

A surprise imbued with little tragedies of anger and the pain of living. Enjoy listening.