AIR DRAWN DAGGER // 'A Guide for Apparitions' // Album Review

Air Drawn Dagger say of their new record: “‘A Guide For Apparitions’ brings multiple meanings. The record can be a Grimoire if you’re being haunted, or a guide if you are confined to a realm you don’t belong.” From the off with the intro track ‘Hymn of the Hag’, there is a distinctly macabre and witchy feel. It feels like we’re about to be led into the woods, where who knows what horrors await. This gives way to the instantly riffy ‘Sanctifound’, the band pulls from every genre throws them all into the cauldron, stirs them all up and spits it back at us as their unmistakable sound. Thumping drums and haunting wailing synths underpin soaring vocals. In ‘Sanctifound’ there are as many twists, turns and time changes as paths to be found in the aforementioned woods. An attention-grabbing opening.

‘Sweatin’ dials down the metal and dials up the pop-punk/emo side of the band, sugar-coated melodies disguise the darker nature of the band with lines like ‘take me to a nice place, shoot me in the back of the head’. Already two tracks in it’s clear the band pay particular attention to the arrangements of the songs, eschewing standard verse chorus verse for a more interesting journey between hooks. As ‘Sweatin’ fades out in Creeps ‘Teeth’, opening with discordant chimes like a demented nursery rhyme, this sets up a recurring hook throughout the track. As each pre-chorus whispers ‘Take your skin off, let them see, we have nothing underneath’ to a melody that normally refers to kissing in a tree.

Keeping the energy up ‘Skinwalkers’ explodes as we hit track 5. The production by Neil Kennedy (Creeper, Boston Manor) on the album is very modern, guitars are crunchy and focused, drums are gated and triggered to ensure that each hit feels like a gunshot or gut punch, and the synths find an easy place in the mix because of this and the vocals shine and soar on top. It’s complimentary of the genre meaning each track feels massive and full.

Pulling back the onslaught ‘Cadvaders’ opens with the insistent pitter patter of rain and some spectral whispers before the band kicks in, hitting us with a wall of guitars. The band find their stride in the track by leaning into their more emo sensibilities. ‘MaidenMotherCrone’ opens with a repetitive chant that feels like a call into the ether for someone or something. Full goth keyboards and hammering drums provide a towering intro. The band say ‘Each track pulls listeners through haunted tales and cosmic chaos, conjuring imagery from Witch Trials to ghost lore.’ At the halfway point in the album, the band has consistently nailed this.

‘Castle’ sits outside of what we’ve heard so far with a decidedly different feel, here the band showcase the electro-emo side of their personality. Here the darkness takes on a different form, more major key and making use of what I’m sure live are crowd chants of ‘nana’. The track could be the soundtrack for any whirling dervish. The multiple vocal layers halfway through sound like they were recorded mid-exorcism. ‘Necromancer’ is the second head of the twin in this one-two punch.

Into the final three and the band dials up the heaviness again, ‘Coma’ is driven forward by double kicks with fills that move between feet and toms throughout giving you an avalanche of drums. Neck-snapping stabs at the end of the track are juxtaposed against the melancholy piano. As close to a title track as we get ‘Apparitions’ features Trash Boat and Tobi Duncan. It ramps up the darkness and rage. ‘We’re so lost, we don’t want to be found’ is the phrase that preludes the rest of the track. The track takes everything we have heard thus far and distils it into one devastating song. Guest vocals give the track a different flavour.

The final track ‘Bellyaches’ acts as the sun rises as we try and emerge from the deep dark woods. That said with lyrics that tell us ‘We won’t make it out alive, kinda hope we die tonight’. Maybe the optimism was premature. After the restrained intro with slightly overdriven-acoustic-ish guitars, we hit the double time and subsequent breakdown without the track ever reaching the heaviest of the previous songs. Meant as a reprieve from what preceded, the song feels like an outlier on the album.

Fans of the genre will eat this up as Air Drawn Dagger is a band that goes from strength to strength in their chosen part of the woods.

Review: Michael Smyth