DRAGONWYCK

Pretty accomplished heavy-psychedelic prog effort from this obscure german band. It's an evidence that it's not krautrock, it sounds surprisingly british with a pure mix between epic fuzzy guitars, grandiose Hammond organ parts and stylistic arrangements. My future waits is maybe the only song that admits links with kraut-melancolic-bluesy fuzzed out obssessions. Consequently this is my favourite one on this album. A very passionate song with distinctive pop-ish accents. The break part is astonishingly melodic, moody and stoned with nice fuzz psych guitar leads. Ideas within you is a more mellow song with a ravishing cloudy melody with folk-ish accents. It carries on the catchy, happy-like and tranquil Fire Climbs. The song features some serious technical, instrumental improvisations dominated by a duet between intense guitar leads and heavy based organ eccentricities. Run to the devil is a seriously spaced out composition with delicate organ chords, floating bluesy guitars and desperate melodic, emotional vocals. God dreams is a bombastic, propulsive heavy rockin' song punctuated by abundant hammond organs and awesome vocals. Ancient Child is a creepy eccentric song based on a carnivalesque demonic atmosphere, perfectly haunted, heavy and oppressive. Dragonwyck could be a teutonic version of Atomic Rooster, Lucifer's friend with a great dose of dark, dreamy, druggy elements. Mesmerizing!

DRAGONWYCK were a five piece band out of Cleveland, Ohio playing 60's sounding music very much in THE DOORS style including the Jim Morrison sounding singer. Fuzzed out guitars, pulsing organ and those vocals lead the way here. I believe they may have named themselves after the 1946 movie that was based on a novel and both with the title Dragonwyck. Vincent Price starred in that gothic movie by the way. So while it sounds like the name of a Metal band it really was a heavy psych band that used it first then in the 00's along comes another band taking that name ironically also from Ohio but Akron and yes they were a Power/ Thrash Metal group.

They self released their first two albums and the second one of those included some songs from the first record I'm reviewing now. The guitarist would start a tribute band in the 80's playing THE DOORS music which was more popular than the band DRAGONWYCK. And this is a pretty good record but just not very original sounding and by the time their record was released most music fans had moved on from this type of music.

"Ancient Child" and "Fire Climbs" are the two most adventerous tunes with the latter the longest by far at 9 minutes and my favourite but it's more about repeating themes while "Ancient Child" is more about changing the tempo and moods. "God's Dream" is the one song that sounds so much like the Syd Barrett era of PINK FLOYD. "Ideas(Within You)" is the only instrumental and the shortest by far. I'm really not into the closer "The Vision" but the opener "My Future Waits" is pretty good tune bringing THE DOORS to mind.

This is a 3 star record in my world nothing more. The previous reviewer calls this Krautrock saying they are from Germany. Nope!