Ever since this Danish band came from nowhere to blow me away with
their superb _Devotion_, I've been eagerly awaiting a follow-up
album. Unfortunately, Aurora had to face a series of problems with
their label, and only managed to resurface in late 2002. To make
things worse, it wasn't until recently that I finally got _Dead
Electric Nightmares_, but at least their 2001 promo CD helped bridge
that gap. So much so, in fact, that this new full-length includes all
four songs demoed on that promo CD -- and what's more, they remain my
favourite tracks on the album ("Metaphysical Electric", "Martyr of
Life", "Two Dice and a Silent Disguise" and "Chains of God"), along
with "New God Rising" and the doomy "Watching, Falling, Breathing".
That really is the one thing that left me slightly concerned on _Dead
Electric Nightmares_: the new songs, albeit very good, generally
failed to top the older material on the album. In spite of this, I
have no reason to doubt Aurora's future work will be at least as
brilliant as their past achievements, which is saying a lot. Virtually
every song (with the possible exception of "Jack") deserves its place
in _DEN_, and the album remains a consistent affair throughout.Having said all this, I still haven't even started to describe what
Aurora sound like; and truth be told, they are a difficult band to
pigeonhole. Their eclectic style is mainly composed of Swedish melodic
death metal with a powerful, modern, discretely technical sound. This
is made all the more unique by the varying moods they employ (all the
way between aggressive and introspective) and vocals that can range
from sung to growled to shrieking. Without necessarily sounding weird
or trying to come across as avant-garde, Aurora have a very refreshing
and to some degree even unique style. Their riffs, melodies and drum
patterns are indeed their own, rather than a more or less conscious
rehash of someone else's -- which is an easy trap to fall into when
you adhere very strictly to a given genre. Opeth, and Dark
Tranquillity's _The Gallery_ are still the closest references I can
come up with, but they're nonetheless rather distant ones most of the time.
Not many people seem to know about Aurora, and these guys deserve
exactly the opposite given their compositional and technical talent;
so do yourself a favour and make sure you look into this band.