Black Aurora - Polar Night
Imagine, if you will, winter. Well, perhaps a bit more detail is required.
More specifically, imagine this: sitting on the wooden deck of your cabin in the winter. Snow gently falls from the dark grey sky, softly covering the trees and and ground, while a small breeze causes leaves to resist their entombment intermittently, stirring up in the cool, dry air. The pine trees sway slightly to and fro, framing a nearly still lake, and behind it, not too far away, a set of grey mountains, white-capped peaks not quite touching the ash-colored clouds. The atmosphere is fulfilled and placid, but melancholic; yet this derives from no palpable sadness. Instead, it is merely the result of the natural wearing on a man’s body and mind; the soft ravages of time and memories upon one’s soul.
Such a description, as you’ve probably guessed, is what I would believe to be an accurate representation of Black Aurora’s music on their debut LP, ‘Polar Night’. Even more wonderfully, this isn’t Agalloch or Woods Of Ypres or some other trendfuck band that relies on melodramatic lyrics and twenty minute songs about trees to get its point across. Black Aurora is a band that uses a modernized form of heavy metal combined with just a pinch of power metal (late Kamelot and Evergrey are good points of reference, but this band is not as bombastic in delivery) to create powerful, emotionally gripping music that is free of cliché and pandering to times past. This isn’t heavy metal in the style of so many bands worshiping at the altar of Priest and Maiden; rather, it is taking the basic ideas of the genre and extrapolating them into the modern age. The idea of ‘heavy metal’ has changed, not for better or worse, but Black Aurora is proving, much like artists such as X Japan before them, that such change can result in genuinely beautiful and worthwhile music.
Yes, it’s a great deal ’softer’ than most of the music I listen to, but it’s fantastic and emotionally affecting without pandering to its audience. In fact, the ’softest’ parts of this release are likely the best. ‘Letter’, the one fully acoustic track of the six here (though there are acoustic portions dotted throughout the album), which despite its rather overdone subject matter, is able to overcome the barrier of tradition to deliver something more. And that thing is realism. This is a GENUINELY emotional display, not a cheap facsimile of it, designed to capitalize off what people expect from such music. It exudes a gentility that is rarely equaled in metal. Of course, the heavier songs most certainly have plenty to contribute: the opening verse of ‘Paradise Lost’ sounds like something that Cynic would do had they been concerned about writing enjoyable music. The music is for the most part mid-paced, and often devoid of double bass, which seems strangely daring and effective for the music here.
While the album starts off a bit slow, the brilliance of this band unfolds completely in the nine-minute epic ‘Aversion Pawn’, with its tradeoffs between acoustic and electric that are beautiful and exciting to listen to, while still not having even a trace of rock music present. Perhaps this is the most unique part of Black Aurora’s music: while many of its tracks appear as rock songs, they manage to prove themselves as undeniably, uncompromisingly heavy metal, even at their very softest portions. It just goes to show that heavy metal is a parallel genre to rock music; not a splinter group like so many would think. Even closer ‘All This Time’ sounds like a Hammerfall song at times, despite its rockish segments. A fantastic album, every moment of it.
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