black metal
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One of the hardest things about reviewing an album, is writing an opening paragraph. It has to be something that grabs the reader's atention and it has to slowly evolve towards the actual review itself. Well, that counts for me, I'm not sure how other reviewers to that but I got my own style and I'm quite happy with that. 'My own style', it sounds nice but there's definitely a lot of work going into the creation of that style, not only as far as writing is concerned but also in the world of extreme music.
Aornos has been working on his own style for years before he came out with this debut. The booklet mentions that the songs on this album were written between 1998 and 2014. With that, I guess the artist behind this Hungarian one-man project means this is a collection of songs he wrote and perfected throughout the past sixteen years. True, black metal usually isn't written in a few days (although I do know some exceptions) but sixteen years is a heck of a long time. It must be a pretty damn good album then?
Oh yeah, it is. If you're into old fashioned, complicated black metal in the vein of bands like Emperor, Mörk Gryning, Vinterland or Abigor, this defintitely is your thing. Raw, bleak black metal with a lot of atmospheric keyboards and semi-acoustic, instrumental passages. That's what we get on 'Orior'. Here and there we can here some hints of the current post-black metal scene but that's not even intentional I think. I think Algras, the artist and multi-instrumentalist who wrote this, is just a brilliant musician.
The songs opens with 'Orior', which somehow functions as an intro and a first glimpse of the musical abilities that Aornos seems to possess. It's immediately followed by one of my favorite tracks, named 'Aversnus'. From there one, the album plunges the listener into a versatile, dark and haunting journey troughout the life and mind of this project. I really dig the constant alternation between heavy and calm passages, between the beautiful acoustic guitars and the fierce blast beats.
Other highlights are 'Aeterna Veritas', 'Gelum' and 'Erratus' but the entire album is obviously worth your attention. These are songs to remember, songs that have the power to remain stuck in your head and that's quite an accomplishment for an underground black metal album. I only hope that this act ever has the chance to perform these songs live, of course supported by a solid band of musicians. Maybe we'll never see that so let's just enjoy this awesome album again, shall we...
Serge
Aornos has been working on his own style for years before he came out with this debut. The booklet mentions that the songs on this album were written between 1998 and 2014. With that, I guess the artist behind this Hungarian one-man project means this is a collection of songs he wrote and perfected throughout the past sixteen years. True, black metal usually isn't written in a few days (although I do know some exceptions) but sixteen years is a heck of a long time. It must be a pretty damn good album then?
Oh yeah, it is. If you're into old fashioned, complicated black metal in the vein of bands like Emperor, Mörk Gryning, Vinterland or Abigor, this defintitely is your thing. Raw, bleak black metal with a lot of atmospheric keyboards and semi-acoustic, instrumental passages. That's what we get on 'Orior'. Here and there we can here some hints of the current post-black metal scene but that's not even intentional I think. I think Algras, the artist and multi-instrumentalist who wrote this, is just a brilliant musician.
The songs opens with 'Orior', which somehow functions as an intro and a first glimpse of the musical abilities that Aornos seems to possess. It's immediately followed by one of my favorite tracks, named 'Aversnus'. From there one, the album plunges the listener into a versatile, dark and haunting journey troughout the life and mind of this project. I really dig the constant alternation between heavy and calm passages, between the beautiful acoustic guitars and the fierce blast beats.
Other highlights are 'Aeterna Veritas', 'Gelum' and 'Erratus' but the entire album is obviously worth your attention. These are songs to remember, songs that have the power to remain stuck in your head and that's quite an accomplishment for an underground black metal album. I only hope that this act ever has the chance to perform these songs live, of course supported by a solid band of musicians. Maybe we'll never see that so let's just enjoy this awesome album again, shall we...
Serge