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Arcanar were influenced by doom, death, black, and jazz-metal, and you hear these traits on this dynamic composition “Dusty Lord.” One doesn’t always expect a debut album to be cohesive, but with the musicians’ past experience in other bands, you get a band that seems to know what they want to play, and they play it. You can tell these guys take their music seriously.
Being that “Dusty Lord” is among the doom and death metal genres you can find elements that remind you of bands such as My Dying Bride, Anathema, Elenium, Novembers Doom, Mental Home, Agalloch, Moonspell, etc…But I personally think when you listen to this album you can see it as a one of the kind experience.
The music varies back and forth from extreme to calm, most of which flows well into each other. Inspiring guitar riffs are used regularly in these arrangements. The electric guitar riffs range from brutal to melodic. And there are a couple acoustic interludes in the middle, that kind of section the album into three parts. Also a six-minute instrumental, which is one of the best tracks on the album. While not used all the time, keyboard add a lot to the music, they tie everything together in my opinion. They add a missing element that many bands choose to ignore. The vocals are generally in the death/black fashion, but clean vocals are also in the mix.
The main songs, or full-bodied songs, are in the five to seven minute ranges. All tallied up there are nine songs and forty-two minutes of doom/death metal. Generally all the songs are constructed well, though none of them really standout. Every track has its top-rate sections, but in the end “Dusty Lord” still gives me a feeling of a band that have just got their feet wet. I hope to hear more from Arcanar in the future, because this is a promising debut.
Rating: 79
Reviewed By: Jeffrey D. Adkins