Customer Reviews

Draconian Times

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Anyone that has read my reviews knows that I love bands like Spiral Architect, Dream Theater, and Tourniquet. These are bands that explore the technical and imaginative possibilties of heavy metal. But every now and then I like to sit back and listen to an album where the focus is on emotion and the songs, not just the neat instrumental parts or solos. That's where albums like DRACONIAN TIMES come in.

This isn't one of those albums in which you are going to blown away by the band's technical ability - not that Paradise Lost are bad musicians. It is one of those albums in which the band seems to savor each note and drumbeat as it flows from their being. Nick Holmes is not one of those whiny singers who tries to impress you with a double digit octave range. Instead, he has the type of voice that consistently resonates with feeling. Not to mention, his ability to write darkly beautiful lyrics without having to resort to shock tactics is something that all lyricists that write about darkness need to learn. I also love Gregor Mackintosh's guitar playing on this album. He is one those players that brings more out of note than most shredders do out of a hundred. He has great control over textures, sometimes using a wah-wah pedal, as well.

Albums like this prove that you don't have to be a virtuoso like Eddie Van Halen or Neil Peart - nothing against them - to put out a great heavy rock album. While you do need a little bit of musical knowledge, the most important ingredient is emotion. That is what all music should be about.

Overall rating: 5 definite stars.

This is like some other reviewer rightly said, the most overlooked metal album of the 90s. If you are one of those people (like me) lamenting the death of metal like the days of old Metallica, Megadeth etc, just pick this album up and you will know what I am talking about. Draconian Times really came during a draconian time for heavy metal and it filled such a big gap. With incredible ENCHANTMENT, the epic album begins and goes only from strength to strength. Hallowed Land, an superb song with chugging guitars of Aaron Aedy will smash you and so does Last Time and Once Solemn. If you hear Once Solemn with your eyes closed, you could really mistake it for old Metallica, the heavy thrashing guitars, excellent vocals, heavy drums etc. Shadow Kings, Elusive Cure, Shades of Gods all live up to the great titles. But the standout track of this album has to be FOREVER FAILURE...this is one of the best songs PL has ever written.

You have to buy to CD to believe what I am saying. Even if you dont have any PL albums, this is a great way to start. It marks the progression of the band, which started as a death metal outfit, to what it eventually became. PL is the most underrated and highly talented band in the world. Every single work of this genius band is incredible and every single self-respecting metal fan should possess them....

I'm a fan of most genres of rock, ranging from soft rock to death metal. And I can say one thing, and that is that I've never heard another album out there like this one. Draconian Times is probably one of the best rock albums I've ever had the opportunity to buy. This cd proves that you don't have to be the fastest and craziest musician to write a great song. I've owned Draconian Times for quite a while now and I still have not become sick of hearing it. If you want an album that will blow you away with originality, buy this cd.

Draconian Times by Paradise Lost is one of the most powerfull dark-rock / metal albums around. There are many bands today who attempt dark metal and with mostly embarassing results. This album is an exception. Nick Holmes drives every word straight to the heart in a Hetfield like roar but at times he uses a low gothic voice. Guitarists Aaron Aedie and Greg Mackintosh play very powerfull simple riffs that dominate the album and the general atmosphere is very moody. Everything here is solid from start to end. Unfortunaltely Paradise Lost are not well known outside of Europe and this album did not get the exposure it deserves. I highly recommend this CD to anyone into hard rock, metal and quality music in general.

Its about time I wrote a Paradise Lost review, they've been my favourite band for nine years.
Draconian Times is an album demonstrating metal of the heaviest and darkest order by the masters of their field. Paradise Lost are the fathers of dark and gothic-tinged metal.
Here, furious emotional vocals(Nick Holmes) are combined with masterful melancholic leads, melodies and riffs(Gregor Makintosh, Aaron Aedy), along with superb lively drumming(Lee Morris' first album with PL) and a nice grinding bass sound carrying the songs through(Steve Edmondson) to create a monumental landmark in metal. This is one of my very favourite albums of all time.
With it's established air of melancholia, fury and darkness, Draconian Times is, when analyzed, very diverse.
Some songs on here are very thrashy, such as "Hallowed Land", "Once Solemn" and "Yearn For Change", the latter of which is coupled with acoustic bridges and brilliant lead lines. On the other hand you can hear Paradise Lost in their specialist field, that of sadness, beauty and abyssal moodiness. This is best demonstrated by "Enchantment", "Forever Failure" "Shades of God" and "Jaded". These songs possess the slowest leads andthe most furious of vocal lines. Some songs have a rather more typical song-structure approach, such as "The Last Time", "I See Your Face" and "Shadowkings", with touches of brilliance particularly adundant on the latter. "Hands of Reason" posseses a song-structure rather similar to that of "True Belief" from Icon, and "Elusive Cure" is a brilliant work of clean melodies with a unique song structure and a very nice bassline.
Such a number of styles of heaviness and sadness fused and intertwined make for the greatest tale of sadness ever told.
Its a shame this album neve quite got the recognition it derserved, maybe one day it will.
My favourite songs here are "Jaded", "Enchantment" and "Elusive Cure".
Many would recommend this album along with Icon, it's predecessor, however these two are very similiar in approach and style. I would recommend Draconian Times with either One Second or Host, so to demonstrate to the listener the great diversification and evolution of the greatest band ever to grace the earth.
Perfect for sunsets, sunrises and dark, gloomy days.

Perhaps the last great rock album of the nineties, Paradise Lost's fifth studio album brought them on a par with Metallica's 'Black' in terms of musical brilliance and commercial potential. Indeed, it sold one and a half million copies and reached number sixteen in the UK album charts, something unheard of for a northern gothic-metal band. Blending keyboards into the mix of hard-rocking guitars, they diversified their sound whilst still retaining the catchy lyrical hooks and pounding choruses of previous albums. The songs are tighter and more structured, and though this detracts from the sprawling originality and unpredictability featured on their previous album, 'Icon', it creates instantly accessible and identifiable rhythms. This is undeniably the pinnacle of the great band, before the next album's slide into European cyber-gothic mediocrity.

'Enchantment' opens the album on a high, moody guitars and atmospheric keyboards merging to great effect throughout and culminating in an enchanting, mystical outro. The stand-out track of the album is 'Hallowed Land', the new drummer Matt Archer's off-beat rhythms creating a lively sense of anthematic rock genius that fully complements Holmes' gruff vocals and McIntosh's singing guitar, and enables them to fit a piano into the mix without lessening the pace. 'The Last Time' is one of the most famous songs from the album, and despite a lacklustre guitar solo, it delivers the catchy chorus and pounding verse that made it the first single. The second single from the album, 'Forever Failure', is a deeply atmospheric number, ringing guitars and a sense of timeless gothic melodrama offset by Charles Manson's dismembered voice entering the mix. 'Once Solemn' is a masterpiece of gothic-metal infused punk-rock power, pounding, hard and heavy, whilst 'Shadow Kings' holds the heaviness yet pulls in a much softer, more melodic vibe. From this point, all the songs start to sound a little the same, most beginning with finger-picked intros and building up to distorted gothic peaks, 'Elusive Cure' and track nine, 'Shades of God', prime examples. Track eight however, 'Yearn for Change', is unique in its fast rock sensibilities and soaring guitar riffs that compete with vocals on top form. 'Hands of Reason', my personal favourite, contains perhaps the best build-up to a guitar solo ever recorded, the drums erupting into a fury that is at once heavy and intriguing. This song also carries one of the best vocal/guitar unions, the opening of the chorus an emotive flurry that is definitely PL's finest moment. The final two songs, 'I See Your Face' and 'Jaded', are like tracks 7 and 9, still powerful and great music, but certainly not stand-out like many of the others.

'Draconian Times' has deservedly earned its place in history, every song intermingling the various styles that make up PL's unique sound and adding something new. The first six songs on the album are all single-potential, but this perhaps is to the detriment of the rest of the album's unfortunate sameness. Holmes' voice on this album is one notch softer and one notch wider-ranging than on 'Icon', and McIntosh continues to astound as the greatest living guitar player, every song complete with guitar-solos that run from fast and frenetic to slow and moody. This album definitely represented PL on the spring-board towards rock-gods status, so it is a shame that they went down the opposite route. If you liked 'Icon', you'll like this, though probably not quite as much due to its tighter formality, but anyone wanting to get into Paradise Lost, or anyone wanting a fine, hard-rocking, diverse and entirely unique album that shows every reason why the band are loved by so many fans, this is the one for you.

I think I will start off by saying that this album is terrific. It is very very dark and melancholic and sounds best when rain lashes out of your window.
The albums starts with the amazing "Enchantment" and the powerful choir at the background that just like the title- puts a spell on you that doesn't wear off for hours and hours. After the dark "Enchantment" comes the faster "Hallowed Land"- and the album is already at it's peak. By the way, if you are not familiar with "Paradise Lost" than "Hallowed Land" is the right song for you to download and get to know this supreme band. Track number four ("Forever Failure") is the most depresing in the album and it deals with suiciding and feeling of total failure, it is also one of the few Paradise Lost songs that actually say something- and that is the downside of the album. Although the lyrics gives a great dark mood it doesn't mean anything at all (except for very few cases). But, all in all, the wonderful music makes up for the lack of lyrics and gives you one of my favourite albums of all time-DRACONIA TIMES.

Awesome. Just plain awesome. I don't even know that this is actually any form of metal, to be quite honest with you. I don't really care what it's called, how it's classified, or where they fit in the whole music mix. I can tell you that "Draconian Times" is a simply phenomenal album. Make that a simply phenomenal, bone crushingly heavy album.

At times sounding like James Hetfield growling over a loud, heavy Depeche Mode, and at times sounding like the Sisters of Mercy without all the over-the-top gothicness. Hell, at times sounding like The Cult back when all they did was rock HARD. Paradise Lost are not heavy metal. At least not what you're thinking of when you use the term. They are, like I said, impressively heavy...in every ounce of this record. The lyrics are beyond heavy, the guitars, the wailing anguish of the singing, it's all heavy. But for some reason, they're not heavy metal. Eh, who cares.

This was another band I had no idea what they'd sound like when I bought the disc. Let it suffice to say that I will now be going out to buy the rest of their catalogue. By the time I heard "Hallowed Land" I was in their enthrall. It's an amazing song that represents the overall "feel" of the record extremely well. Punishing guitars, a haunting yet beautifully sad melody, and disturbing lyrics. Check out "Shades of God" and "I See Your Face" for more examples of simply amazing music. But don't limit yourself to those songs of course; the whole album rocks like I haven't heard in many, many years.

Just go get this album. Now that you've read the review, drop whatever it is you're doing and run out and get it. Or click that 'Add to cart' link up above or something. Just get it!

This album is the gathering together of all the elements that make Paradise Lost a great band. This album and to a lesser extent Icon define the sound of this truly orginal metal band. The music is atmospheric, dark and gets better with each listen. If you want a true representation of Paradise Lost, don't get their newer techno-oriented material like One Second. Go for this album. It is one of the best metal records I have heard.

Draconian Times is Paradise Lost at their absolute pinnacle. Like any great album, repeated listenings offer up nuances you just didn't hear before. Draconian Times is a moody, emotional album perfect for rainy days and late night drives in your car. It is not surprising that Paradise Lost has yet to record another album to match this one - One Second was an excellent follow-up but it lacked the underlying heaviness that makes Draconian Times so compelling. Just a few listens and you'll wonder how you ever survived without this album in your collection.