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""Abyssal Arcana" signs the thunderous entry of Draven in the universe of the dark synth."
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3/5
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Dark synth or horrorsynth (call it what you want) is a label that is starting to scare people. Because like all the (sub)genres that become fashionable, there are no more followers who are content to rush into the breach that they saturate very quickly by recycling without imagination what the style in question could have been innovative or refreshing. Not everyone is Carpenter Brut or Perturbator!
It would be tempting to condemn Draven to the rank of these followers more or less inspired. It is true that he aligns all the invariants of this humming and dark synthwave: overpowering sound fuselage, electro layers in turbo mode, sinister atmospheres and references to the horror movies of the 70s and 80s and to the soundtracks that give them rhythm. Nothing new then. However, it seems difficult to resist to the charms as poisonous as robotic of "Abyssal Arcana", trial album of the Greek Deamien Raven.
The man merges with the main character in the center of the story declined by these thirteen tracks sneaking like so many guts in the entrails of Necropolis, horrific and nocturnal city. The name of the musician evokes "The Curse" by Richard Donner but also "The Crow" by Alex Proyas, itself inspired by the eponymous comic book. This city populated by creatures of the night is also part of a long cinematographic line of sprawling cities, from Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" to Alex Proyas' "Dark City" (again). The tribute to John Carpenter is obvious, an influence that is almost obligatory in the genre, as illustrated by the opening of "Black Nightmare" and its strong hints of "Halloween". This greedy cinephilia explains in part the sympathy felt towards this project but it is not the only one.
Certainly too long and repetitive, "Abyssal Arcana" is nonetheless rumbling with a gloomy and subterranean energy that carries everything away in its path ('Silver Coffin'). Like a morbid mist, the album spreads icy atmospheres that underline a pulsating tempo ('Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things'). Gothic choirs and breaks in abundance build with a macabre grandiloquence a cyclopean cathedral ('BloodGod'). But to this baroque excess answer a hypnotic minimalism ('Demonic Incantation Blues') and a form of beauty as bewitching as convulsive ('Exsanguinated With A Drill'), the whole bubbling at the bottom of a cauldron as telluric as cataclysmic. Imagining this album as a horrific soundtrack, Draven knows how to lead the listener in a gloomy and shivering whirlwind, punctuated by rare lulls in the middle of a sonic and sensory deflagration.
Although a little bit tiring on the duration, "Abyssal Arcana" signs the thundering entry of Draven in the universe of the dark synth, conductor of a shattering story fed to the scary movies and to the bugs that proliferate in the night. - Official website
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TRACK LISTING:
01. Forgive Me Father - 01:46
02. The Horrifying Autopsy Of Deamien Raven - 03:15
 03. Cauchemar Noir - 03:56
04. Silver Coffin - 03:23
05. Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things - 03:58
06. Bloodgod - 04:17
07. Demonic Incantation Blues - 03:17
08. Impalement & The Brazen Bull - 03:16
09. A Horrorsynth Symphony - 03:39
10. The Conjuring - 05:11
11. The Intimate Portrait Of The Devil - 05:16
12. Le Vampire Du Grand Guignol - 04:35
13. Exanguinated With A Drill - 03:43
LINEUP:
Draven: Claviers
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STAFF:
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