Ελληνικά
Genre: Black / Thrash Metal
Country: Norway
Label: Indie Recordings
Year: 2018
Not only are the musicians in Aura Noir experienced with a bunch of other, fairly big acts from Norway, they have also kept this band going for more than twenty years now and their personal black / thrash is dearly loved in this particular genre crossover style. The essence of the group is musically, as well as thematically, grown into the idea of pure, traditional metal, with all the vileness that comes with it, and they haven’t let their project’s material get affected by external factors all these years.
Their discography consists of a handful of full lengths with almost no underwhelming point, as each one is sincerely interesting to get into and they appeal more to metal freaks than experimentalists. A six year period of nothing was what followed after their 2012 full length “Out to Die”, but now Aura Noir are back with their latest effort, subtly called “Aura Noire”, which finds the band at the same aural river as they’ve always been, without stepping down in quantity or quality.
This new album still exercises the sound of the band as it was firstly seen in 2008 with “Hades Rising” and it’s pretty much a galore of raspy vocals, fast black / thrash tempos with furious, raw guitar lines again and again. The band’s roots to 80’s thrash are obvious in most of the compositions, and at the same time middle paced parts are also in an important position in the whole of “Aura Noire”. Apollyon’s voice is also raucous, and he doesn’t really sing, more like spitting words in a talking manner and as fast as possible, while most of the words he’s saying are easy to understand.
The few existing solos don’t exaggerate and offer some kind of rock-ish seconds, especially well in during “Mordant Wind”, also one of the best tracks in the record. More highlight tracks are also “The Obscuration” and “Shades Ablaze”, showing the Aura Noir sound as clearly as can be. A repetitive part that goes on in “Hells Lost Chambers”, and the ominous clean guitar riffs towards the end of it, was something that took me by surprise in an otherwise indifferent song, that I now really like and would put in an Aura Noir playlist.
The band has chosen a two minute instrumental as an outro, which doesn’t do much more that what the rest of the album did and I was wondering about their choice to structure the record like that, as that outro could easily be just a filler part of another track. Production wise, the album definitely has my favorite sound among their 2000- full lengths, with a perfect drum and bass sound I always seek in situations like these.
By first listen, “Aura Noire” will be difficult to follow and might drive some listeners away, but it isn’t inferior to some of the band’s more recent works. In my opinion, nothing will ever top the artistic brilliance that was “Deep Tracts of Hell”, one of my most loved metal albums of all time, but that doesn’t mean at all that Aura Noir has lost their touch and bands like these, should definitely be active these years. If you give time to “Aura Noire”, there are indeed fine moments to be discovered.
4/6
