Aura Noir “Aura Noire” (Indie Recordings)
I have to confess that I wasn’t scheduled to cover this album. My better half was. But she’s a bit under the weather, so I’ve taken over the duties… and it’ll come as a massive surprise to “she who must be obeyed” that I actually like this, as the first time I heard Aura Noir we were driving through some beautiful countryside and she put one of their early cds on in the car and my first reaction was, “what the fuck is this racket?”.
I don’t know if I was just caught off-guard by the onslaught, mixed in with the noise of the car engine, but Aura Noir are nowhere near as bad as I remember…
This review isn’t aimed at the converted, but more at those that haven’t sampled the delights of Aura Noir. This isn’t my normal poison of choice, so to me, this sounds like a more tuneful version of Venom, probably mixed in with War and Pain era Voivod, an album I need to re-acquaint myself with, as it’s been way too long since I last played it. I even detect a bit of NWOBHM, which reminds me of early Saxon… but I’m not sure why!
And to my surprise, yet again, in a dark, gnarly and nasty kind of way, this is actually quite tuneful. I’m not quite getting the Thrash tag though. To me this harks back to the innovators of Extreme Metal, with leanings towards the old school black side of things. Even the onslaught of “The Obscuration” sounds more like Venom on speed, rather than a full-on Thrash attack. The most Thrash orientated song is probably, “Demoniac Flow”, and that’s mainly due to the fantastic riffing. But music can be so subjective at times, one man’s Thrash can be another man’s Black Metal, such are the blurring of the boundaries on albums like this.
So Aura Noir, you now have a new fan… and I’ll just tread carefully when I check out your back catalogue.
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