A U R O R A

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A U R O R A is, in a sense, the proper companion to 2009’s excellent By the Throat, but it’s shaggier and more intense. Swirls of some heavily processed and entirely unnameable instrument growl overhead and smother the underlying but fundamental driving percussion before falling away, leaving us to slowdance alone with these heady beats for a time. That usually happens to me about two-thirds of the way through this album (on the relatively-dull "Sola Fide"). The Teeth Behind the Kisses” is a ghost in the machine, silently lurking and threatening although it’s barely there. This album to me is probably the only album I find 'unlistenable', and i don't mean 'unlistenable' in the sense that the themes are so awful and hateful you have to turn it off (the good way), I mean that some of the production literally causes pain to my ears.

Where the former flares up to induce an altogether endurable cacophonous foray - again, not without moments of melodic reprieve – the latter builds on Harris’ cautionary bell tolls and Frost’s merciless orchestration to induce something altogether more extraordinary. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. I like this record, I actually like it more now that I’ve carefully reviewed it, but, and it’s only a little “but”, there’s still something just slightly holding me back from going head-over-heels. Sharp, disfigured melodies fight against the might of pounding bass drums and disfigured analog noise, the track’s anti-anthemic ascension bleeding into the festering near-silence of “The Teeth Behind Kisses”, a rare mournful respite serving as a truce between two trouncing battles. More allusions to luminosity and dance clubs continue in the strobing chemiluminescence of “Diphenyl Oxalate”, named after the material within glowsticks, and at just 1:31 it lives up to its name.It’s that sort of industrial album, unlike the catchy metal of say, Ministry or Nine Inch Nails; Aurora actually feels like it was made in a menacing factory with Frost overseeing his mad production.

Rex wreaking havoc on a chainsaw factory the song rushes into a surprisingly danceable beat with pulsating and uneasy synths mingling with crashing drums.Unravelling from an almost strutting rhythmic litany, the threatening industrialism of “Secant” is a highlight. Aurora is another piece of decimation, deconstructing industrial and ambient sounds into primal, fearful forms. There are moments where it feels less like the music is in its quiet or loud moments and more like someone's adjusting the volume behind your back as a prank. With a tempest brewing in the distance, “Flex” expires with a sigh, washes of noise disperse as if dreamt and an ephemeral trickle of water flows somewhere in the background. On the other hand, the same thing happens here that happens with a lot of albums that are very abstract: without a lot of context for the music, one can easily get lost or distracted and lose interest in what's going on.