This is a really promising MCD. Aura play melodic Death Metal which reminds me a bit of Dark Tranquillity ('Skydancer' era). Plenty of acoustic sections and the occasional dose of clean vocals here, amongst some deft distorted guitarwork of a Maidenesque nature. The growled vocals remind me of an English band called Morbid Symphony (the vocal style used on their demo 'The Obscure Depths Of Light,') which is often more like rasped speaking than booming growls or screams. The production is fair, but unfortunatly the drum sound is a little hollow - however this isn't of high importance. Although there are hundreds of melodic DM bands from Scandinavia these days, Aura have more to offer than the mechanical In Flames rip-off bands, I feel. I'm not sure quite what it is - perhaps it's the clean vocals and the song structures, which give genuinely catchy moments rather than just melody for melody's sake. At times this sort of sounds like a more compact version of Opeth, with some clearly audible basslines, delightful acoustic guitar picking and the clean vocal style I mentioned earlier. Unfortunetly the songs seem to finish a little too soon, and I sometimes felt that they could've added an extra section or two - although the songs are reasonably diverse nonetheless.
Good stuff - and since it's a bite-size offering (i.e. a MCD), you can play the whole thing and not get bored. In fact, each of the 4 tracks are probably as good as each other. I'd like to hear more from this band.
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