Johan Ericson is clearly a man with too much time on his hands. Not content with merely playing guitar (and formerly drums) for Swedish Gothic Doom heavyweights Draconian and performing every aspect of solo project Doom:VS, he clearly needed a new project to fill his time with. That project has taken the form of Shadowgarden, a foray into the much lighter and more melodic arena of commercial gothic rock. Joining him in this venture are Draconian guitarist Andreas Hindenäs, Draconian drummer Jerry Torstensson, and on guest vocals, Draconian singer Lisa Johansson. Given that the last Draconian album was somewhat lighter and more melodic in style to previous releases; could Shadowgarden be a sneaky preview of what we can expect from Draconian in future?
So firstly, anyone expecting an onslaught of crushing yet melodic doom should step away now, because you will be very disappointed. Shadowgarden’s forte is heavy on the melodic, but light on the doom. The guitars are light and twangy, the vocals are high and, dare I say it, cheery, with only the merest suggestion of sorrow, loss and disappointment. Opener ‘Shadowplay’ has a purposeful rock guitar riff, and Ericson’s vocals have a slight raw edge in the style of any of a number of late 80’s heavy rock artists. Everything sounds quite light and fluffy, in a kind of disappointed romantic kind of way, and musically everything is tight and polished. The mid paced rock ballad is represented with ‘Last Summer’, a simple yet effective bit of AOR which is certainly has nothing new to offer, but at the same time has nothing at all wrong with it. The guest vocals of Lisa Johansson bring a whole new lease of life to proceedings on ‘With Love and a Bullet’, as her voice is immeasurably more suited to this music than Ericson’s. I’ve always considered Lisa Johansson to be one of the most underrated female singers in rock and metal, and it’s a shame that her contribution is only limited to this song, as it is by far and away the best thing on the album.
There are a few heavier elements to ‘Ashen’ though. The main riff to ‘The Withering Of Mine’ has a considerably larger amount of balls than most on here, and ‘Slowmotion Apocalypse’ brings us back closer to recent era Draconian, with Ericson getting a chance to wheel out the occasional growl. In opposition to this however, the quite horrible ‘Sorrow’s Kitchen’ serves up a meal of sweet mince well past it’s sell by date, prepared using a very bland recipe from the much overthumbed HIM cookbook. ‘Way Down Low’ is built around a riff used to great success in the 80s by the likes of The Sisters of Mercy and The Mission, and in fairness it sounds pretty good here.
Allow me to make one thing quite clear. ‘Ashen’ is not a bad album, not by any means. It’s more than listenable, it’s actually quite enjoyable when listened to in its entirety, (with perhaps the exception of Sorrow’s Kitchen), but then I also feel like I’ve listened to it so many times before, so derivative is the material. There’s no doubting the quality of the musicianship, and indeed the effort put into this by Johan Ericson, but he really does do the whole doom thing so much better. Also his voice, which is by no means bad, is a little bit on the weak side. The difference when Lisa Johansson sings, in power and professionalism, is stunning, and I can’t help but wonder just how good this would have been if she had sung on the whole album. In summary, this is nice yet bland and whilst I eagerly await the release of the next Draconian album, I sincerely hope that they don’t lighten up to anywhere near this standard. However, if you’re a fan of latter era Poisonblack, I confidently predict you’ll lap this up.
http://www.myspace.com/shadowgardenmusic
