Druadan Forest - The Lost Dimension

DRUADAN FOREST - The Lost Dimension (WOLFSPELL Records CD 2017)

It's funny, but sometimes it's enough to look at the cover and you already know what kind of music you can expect from the album. That's exactly what I felt before I started to listen to Druadan Forest's second album "The Lost Dimension". I never heard of this band before, first time I saw its name was, when I got this CD from Wolfspell Records. But looking at that beautiful artwork, with dreamy, fantasy landscape, logo and the Tolkien based name, the whole other art and design for this CD, I expected the music to be in the vein of bands like Summoning or Caladan Brood. And of course it is haha! Which is not a problem, I'm always looking forward to listen to new bands. But you know what? I've never been huge Summoning fan. And I think I've listened to Caladan Brood's album maybe couple of times only. I always felt slightly bored with their epic, yet very symphonic and melodic style and lyrics based on Tolkien's works. I think that such music is just too much one dimensional, too monotonous for me and too happy sounding also. I could never get deep into that fantasy atmosphere. I could listen to such stuff occasionally, but never for too long. Well, since Druadan Forest sounds exactly like these two bands, then the problem is also exactly the same. Luckily for me, "The Lost Dimension" is not too long, the album is closed within 40 minutes, so I have never felt bored, while listening to it. And I even surprised myself that I can enjoy such stuff so much. 

The music on "The Lost Dimension" is obviously very keyboard oriented. This instrument plays dominant role, so the music is strongly symphonic and highly melodic (for some reason the atmosphere sometimes reminds me also Mortiis!!!). It's doomy fantasy (black??) metal with shrieking vocals and epic nature. The bombastic atmosphere is obviously quite dark, but also enchanting and you can even describe the music as beautiful, because these melodies and orchestral parts are truly "nice" and "pleasant". It's very well composed music, definitely, I have to say that V-Khaoz (also known from bands like Oath, Azaghal and Hin Onde) came up with some very good songs. His arrangements and whole performance - from keyboards and guitars to the croaky, harsh vocals - is great. And songs like "The Shadowborn" or "Beyond the Sun, Beyond the Moon" - or any other, as the song quality is very even, with no fillers - is as high as you can imagine in this sort of music. I only skip the opening track "Dreams upon a Crimson Dawn" sometimes, because it's just useless symphonic intro. 

So, from the strict technical aspect, I won't say anything wrong about "The Lost Dimension". It's very well composed and performed. Whether you'll like the music or not, that just depends on your own taste. I enjoyed this album a lot, I have to say. It's so easily listenable and memorable that it's somehow almost impossible to resist it and to its epic aura, so I spent nice few hours playing it. Even if I started to feel fed up with it, I switched to something else, but soon returned to "The Lost Dimension", because it's just so fun to listen to. Yeah, I know that Druadan Forest sounds way too much like Summoning, so the originality is not the strongest aspect of this record. I know also that there's not much difference between these songs, speaking of the tempos, riff and keyboard style, vocals, etc. But it doesn't matter, because the music is very well composed and played. I am sure that "The Lost Dimension" will please many of you also. Definitely it's worth of your interest, so grab a copy and support Druadan Forest. 

Standout tracks: "The Shadowborn", "Beyond the Sun, Beyond the Moon" 

Verdict: 80/100