Draconis has finally released their debut CD with the same title from their last demo. I was very impressed watching these guys live a few times and I couldn’t resist getting a hold of their CD sooner or later. If you guys haven’t heard these guys, let me give you a basic description of them. You would be surprised that these guys are from California! Their sound is very Swedish that is along the likes of Marduk, Mork Gryning, Dawn, Dark Funeral, and Dissection. But anyways, back to the album. This debut is about 37 minutes long with ten songs, three of which were originally featured from their last demo, namely Overlords of the Greying Dawn, Black Horde of Blasphemy, and Unseen Reflections of Interdimensional Transfixions. I’m quite happy that I got this CD, even though the production is a little bit muddy, but not as muddy as the original Overlords of the Greying Dawn demo. This is simply an awesome and crushing release from this California black metal band, even though the drumming is a little bit sloppy, where as you can hear the drum sticks hitting each other on the drum rolls. Draconis are definitely going to be one of the leading black metal acts from California along with Noctuary with this debut album alone.

© 1998 grave
[this review originally appeared in INSOMNIA zine]