Connect with us

Reviews

Norway’s AURA NOIR Serve Up a Blackened ‘Aura Noire’ Track-by-Track [Exclusive]

Norwegian metal trio, Aura Noir are pissed off and Aura Noire is as raw as their hatred of all things mainstream. Check out this exclusive track-by-track from Aggressor himself; of which he so eloquently stated, “Enjoy it or choke on it!”

Published

on

Norwegian metal trio, Aura Noir are pissed off. In fact, they’ve been pretty peeved since their inception in Oslo back in 1995. Since day 1, the band — which consists of Aggressor, Apollyon and Blasphemer — despised fads and trends, and shared their views via the blackened thrash metal madness that they helped birth. Due out on April 27th, via Indie Recordings and Peaceville Records, Aura Noire is the group’s first offering since 2012’s Out To Die and is as raw as their hatred of all things mainstream. Check out some of the bad-ass songs below, plus this exclusive track-by-track from Aggressor himself; of which he so eloquently stated, “Enjoy it or choke on it!”

01. “Dark Lung of the Storm”
– “Dark Lung of the Storm”, tentatively called “Bucuresti-låta” – «the Bucuresti-tune», made in Bucuresti. Single number one. We rented an apartment there for about a week to rehearse and write new material. We made this track plus a couple of other songs there (in our friend Marius Costache’s studio). The song opens with one of my riffs then Blasphemer comes storming in with an «answer», and then it all goes off the rails. Blasphemer calls it «Dark Plum» for short. One of our favourites on the album.

02. “Grave Dweller”
– Grave Dweller, tentatively called «The Kreator-song» since the opening riff has an early Kreator-vibe to it. Apollyon and I made this one in a rehearsal room in Oslo, close to the Rockefeller music hall. We wanted to play slow drums on a fast riff. That’s something we like to do from time to time, either a slow riff with fast drums or, as in this case, a fast riff with slow drumming.

03. “Hell’s Lost Chambers”
– Same deal here, made at the same rehearsal-place in Oslo. We called it «epic» with no sense of irony. Apollyon would say, during rehearsal, with an absolutely straight face, «lets do Epic». Apollyon made the mid-part of the song, though he hates playing double kickdrum beats. Apollyon insisted on having a song like this on the album, a «tryckare», a slow burner.

Thanks to some heavy riffing, the “Shades Ablaze” single is on fire!


04. “The Obscuration”
– «The Portugal Song». We finished this one up in Portugal, but we started on it much earlier,. I remember Blasphemer warming up before a gig somewhere in Denmark, and I just took some of what he was playing and made a riff out of it. Kristian TANK Valbo made the second verse-riff.. I wanted to do a take on an Tom Araya-esque sort of rapid singing, I always found his vocals on Hell Awaits to be extremely striking, at least I made an effort. Not too bad for a pair of old smokers-lungs, I guess.

05. “Demoniac Flow”
– Tentatively called «The Motörhead-song» for obvious reasons. The opening drum-beat is a pure homage to Motörhead’s Overkill. We feel that the guitarsolo-part here, where the bass comes in harmonising with the guitar during the solo is some of the ugliest music we’ve ever been able to conjure up. Very nasty stuff.

06. “Shades Ablaze”
– Tentatively called «Ole-låta», Apollyons song. Single number two. Mostly made by Apollyon and the rest by Blasphemer. I have no part in the songwriting here, apart from the lyrics, maybe that’s why it’s so popular already. We started making this one in Portugal and finished it up in Bucharest.

07. “Mordant Wind”
– «Rune-låta», mostly made by Blasphemer. This was the very first song we started working on, even before the Portugal-sessions. It’s probably the most progressive (if one can call it that) song on the album. Mordant is an old archaic (extinct) word that used to mean something like Sarcastic.

08. “Cold Bone Grasp”
– Tentatively called «Happy-Joe». An example of how silly our tentative titles can get sometimes. We probably called it that because the opening riff is so upbeat. The song is probably one of our favourites to play, since it’s kinda easy. We started working on this very early on, but finished it up in Bucharest along with the rest of the material. A strong Show no Mercy-vibe to this song.

09. “Outro”
– Simply called Outro was a riff we were jamming on way back when we were still working on material for our previous album Out to Die, in Apollyon’s old cellar up in the north-east valley. Nothing came out of it back then. Maybe it was deemed too heavy-rock oriented or something. But it works well as a stand-alone riff that serves a function, whether it’s an intro or an outro.

There’s no way for you to avoid the “Dark Lung Of The Storm”…

Born in 2003, V13 was a socio-political website that, in 2005, morphed into PureGrainAudio and spent 15 years developing into one of Canada's (and the world’s) leading music sites. On the eve of the site’s 15th anniversary, a full re-launch and rebrand takes us back to our roots and opens the door to a full suite of Music, Film, TV, and Cultural content.

Trending