Nox Aurea - Via Gnosis (CD)

Review
Femforgacs
8.2/10
24.01.2010

Talán egyeseket meglep majd, de a kedvenc Solitude Productions-ünk nem csak Ukrán és Orosz csapatokkal foglalkozik (ahogy eddig is volt erre már elég ellen példa), hiszen a Nox Aurea svéd, azon belül is Gothenburg-i csapat. Még se számítsunk valami új keletű In Flames vagy At The Gates másolatra. A Västra Götalands lä nevű városkából érkezett csapat tavaly tette meg első komolyabb lépését Via Gnosis című debütjével, s mellesleg 2005-ben alakultak.

A helyett hogy a már fentebb említett csapatok mezsgyéjén haladtak volna a Nox Aurea legénysége, inkább a doom-death megkeseredett világát erősíti, azon belül is elsősorban a My Dying Bride neve említhető meg, de valahol a háttérben ott vezekel a korai Crematory illetve Cemetery, és a Paradise Lost, Lethian Dreams és Bolt Thrower is. Természetesen a több mint egy órás Via Gnosis nem hoz új nyarat, de még fecskéket se nagyon indít neki a kifutópályán valami friss dologért… ezen nem változtat Alice Persell művésznő csodálatos hangja sem (így néhol erősen a korai Theatre of Tragedy vonalon halad a dolog).
Bár azt hiszem a tradicionális elemek miatt nem is akartak ők újítani, egyszerűen létrehoztak egy újabb halmazt, amely fanyarú, keserű, romlottan édes, álmokkal teli, no meg fájdalommal szőtt. A külsőségek a megszokott keserű és haldokló giccsekben tetszelegnek, a klisét leszámítva illik a koncepcióhoz, s a valóban mély szövegekhez. A hangzás is tökéletesen megfelel a műfaj kritériumainak, avagy mélyen szántó és sötéten reszelő riffek hada fogad, amint a lágy billentyűk felhői repedezni kezdenek. Igényes és jól összerakott anyag, amin érződik a tudás is és az hogy érlelve lett, nem elkapkodott, kényszer korong!

Szokványos zárással varrom el a szálakat; avagy aki vevő a doom-death zenékre, az ezzel is tehet egy próbát, ám aki csak érdeklődő és nem a műfaj kegyence, az hagyja nyugodtan tovább úszni a csendes folyón, akár egy falevelet…

Author: haragSICK

Review
Diabolical Conquest
6.9/10
07.09.2010

Before they became remarkably awful, the Norwegian group Funeral released a record by the name of Tragedies – while like most early-mid 90s doom records Tragedies has not aged incredibly well, it set the standard for a particular style of doom which is now grotesquely abundant throughout Europe. This style, that of gothic death/doom, is perhaps my least favourite. The overused ‘lamentations’ by so many faceless groups are overwhelmingly bad, and even the more popular bands to whom Nox Aurea can be compared, such as Draconian, are plain irritating. One of the biggest problems with the genre is that there is a huge restriction on the amount of variation these musicians can include in their style – if you’re making gothic death/doom, you adhere to the typical gothic death/doom tenets, and you have your run of the mill gothic death/doom album. Now, if you’re not especially fond of gothic death/doom, it’s hard to find any listening pleasure in these wholly manufactured bands.

Nox Aurea heil from one of Europe’s safe havens for melodic music, perhaps the only one outside of Eastern Europe – Gothenburg, Sweden. Their country mate Draconian is like an older brother, setting the standard for contemporary commercialised death/doom, one which Nox Aurea stick to as closely as possible. It’s all here – spoken word sections (both male and female), synths, violins, gutturals, heavenly female vocals, despondent atmosphere, acoustic interludes etc. etc. What makes Via Gnosis listenable, plus allowing me to give it a somewhat positive rating, is simply riffs. I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of this music – anyone who has read some of my doom reviews before will know that anything that is ‘gothic’ will usually be scorned in every possible way, but for some reason I am a little partial to this record. It’s not technically proficient, but some of the songs (particularly in the first half, it gets monotonous the longer it goes on) are certainly enjoyable. Having thought about it for a little while, I think it may be because the ‘gothic’ element is not overly explicit – sure, the inclusion of female vocals or My Dying Bride inspired speeches certainly categorises this as something from the gothic realms of music, but because the band manages to remember that they’re still playing a variation of death metal makes Via Gnosis partially tolerable.

Perhaps I’m not the best person to be reviewing this kind of music, but I like to think I know my doom, and that definitely includes being highly critical of its mediocrity. Nox Aurea aren’t anything special – I’m actually surprised I somewhat liked this record, considering I despise Draconian and Via Gnosis is Draconian worship at best. Nevertheless, this record is not inherently bad. If bands like Draconian, My Dying Bride, DOOM:VS, or even (dread the thought) Swallow the Sun appeal to you, then you will definitely enjoy Via Gnosis. Though I won’t be spinning it incessantly after I’ve filed this review, you can count on that. It’s only their first record, and in the year since its release the band have released their second album – whether they’ve made any improvements, I cannot tell you, but what I will say is that Nox Aurea are the sort of band who, if the right corrections are made, can become something memorable within this style of death/doom.

Author: Berkay Erkan

Review
Heavy Impact
7/10
30.12.2009

Per gli antichi (in particolare per i pensatori greci) la via verso la verità, consisteva in un metodologico allontanamento dal mondo sensibile. Questo allontanamento non era altro che un’ascesa verso l’Aletheia (la verità).

Questo primo album degli svedesi Nox Aurea, dal titolo più che chiaro “Via Gnosis”, rappresenta attraverso il death/doom metal quella ascesa di cui parlavo sopra, e lo fa previo nove dolorose tracce entro le quali danzano i fantasmi dei primi My Dying Bride ed Anathema, in un continuum sonoro, che pur non brillando per originalità e ricercatezza, si dona all’ascoltatore con modi evocativi e sofferti che seguono la massima di Emil Cioran (filosofo rumeno a cui la band fa riferimento) “Soffrire è produrre conoscenza”.

Per ciò che concerne il profilo musicale in senso stretto, l’album si colloca sulla soglia della sufficienza, per il suo restare fedele ai canoni del genere senza riuscire a stupire. Le tracce presenti si compongono di intesi squarci bui ove prendono forma plumbei riffs, funerei mid-tempos, ombrosi movimenti di tastiere growl e clean vocals, queste ultime affidate all’animo femminino della singer Alice Persell. Tra le tracce presenti, si lasciano apprezzare per particolare pregnanza ai temi trattati, “Suffer”, la brumosa forza misantropica di “Nights in Solitude” e la catartica invocazione di “Mother Aletheia”, lunghi brani ove prende forma un feeling fatto di oscure e dolorose riflessioni sulla via da intraprendere per giungere all’essenza più pura della verità, intesa come ente più essente. Tale feeling viene sempre in primo piano grazie ad una dialettica strumentale ottima, capace di bilanciare sempre tutti gli elementi di cui essa stessa consta.

In conclusione, un lavoro stilisticamente buono che esige un ascoltatore maturo ed un cultore di quello che è il pensiero di Emil Cioran, dove la scrittura (e in questo caso la musica) non è una modalità di diffusione di idee bensì uno stato terapeutico per dissipare il proprio dolore.

Un lavoro che va colto in maniera lenta e che va curato per scoprirne la profondità. Profondità che passa attraverso il concept che ivi soggiace. Musica come catarsi.

«Vi sono notti in cui l'avvenire si abolisce, e di tutti i suoi momenti sussiste soltanto quello che sceglieremo per non più essere.» E. Cioran

Author: Andrea Angelino

Review
Brutalism
3/5
22.12.2009

Swedish doom metal band Nox Aurea, which features members of Rimfrost, The Cold Existence and Domgard, has just released their first full length album. The band is basically a death/doom/gothic hybrid, like most bands in this genre they use female vocals and produce a haunting atmosphere through the use of synths. This is of course the trend among these types of bands and Nox Aurea are real good at it but they are not likely to set the world alight with experimentation. They follow in the footsteps of many bands before them like Draconian and Swallow The Sun to name just two. What does set them apart from other bands with a gothic doom sound is they use a lot more death metal elements than most other bands in the genre even though this is essentially still a doom album. They also have a lot of shared duties on this album, there is 3 different people playing synths, guitars and bass along with 4 people sharing vocals. The album is a major piece of work at 72 minutes long so it is not a easy to listen to all the way through if this is not your style of metal. This album is made up of a series of interludes that act like fillers more than anything else but a couple of them are pretty good. One of them is "Night in Solitude’, which uses clean male whispered vocals, calming synths and acoustics but like most of the tracks on here, its too long. "The Funeral Of All" is the first real track on the album and stands out as being the most listenable tune on the album, listenable because it does not drag on too much even though its 10 minutes in length. Another good track is "Suffer" which features one of the better riffs on the album but the combination of male death growls and the haunting female vocals tend to sound confused and un-balanced. I think if they would have just stuck to one or the other, the overall sound would have benefited a lot. "Mother Alethia" is one of the better examples of the male/female vocal mix, the track starts off with one of the most haunting opening sections of music i have heard in a long time but unfortunately begins to drag by the 5 minute mark and then there is still another 7 minutes to get through. Once again i get back to the subject of interludes, there is just too many off them on this album. There is tracks that are interludes themselves and there is musical interludes contained within the actual songs. This spoil the flow of some of the songs for me as some of this album is awesome. There is some great doom riffing, haunting melodies and the powerful full production is faultless and when the female vocals are left alone to carry a song for a while, the effect is mesmerizing.But again the musical breaks provided a problem for me, i get the feeling that the band are capable of far better than simply relying on interludes to allow their audience time to adjust to the next epic song. There has been for a long time a sense of predictability to the death/doom hybrid and this band is no exception but then again you could say that about a lot of musical genres. There is nothing on "Via Gnosis" which hasn’t already been done hundreds of times before. Dual vocals, clean for both male and female, harsh growls typical of the death/doom scene, a melodic keyboard section and some crushing guitar sections. Lets face it, that sums up nearly every band in this field of metal but its not a bad album. I actually enjoy large sections of it but there is just too many interludes, too many occasions where a song will be building a nice riffing passage and then change. This is a album that if they were to cut out 20 minutes of filler and some of the disjointed male/female vocal work then this album would be one of the best ever released in the genre but the way it is, it just sounds like they had a real shortage of ideas but stretch the album out to 70 minutes anyway. I can still see a lot of doomsters digging this though, it just not what i am after right at this moment.

Author: ed

Review
Metal Revolution
60/10
16.12.2009

Swedish doom metal band Nox Aurea, which features members of Rimfrost, The Cold Existence and Domgard, has released their debut album entitled Via Gnosis.

While this album is good it's still just an average doom metal album. Their sound is gloomy, eerie, and unearthly. Other than the slight death metal influence, this album sounds a lot like other doom albums out there and is exactly what you would expect to hear from a doom metal band. Vocals vary from growling to clean male and female vocals, some heavy doom riffs, and keyboards. They follow the trend of many doom/death bands and use female vocals to create a haunting feel. While many doom metalers will enjoy this album there's really nothing exciting or new on it.

The album is just over 70 minutes long and honestly at times is hard to get through. Many of the songs drag on repetively and the predictability is boring. Don't get me wrong there are some great eerie and haunting melodies and doom filled riffs, but the predicibility takes away from the enjoyment of the album.

Overall a good album, but nothing to write home about.

Author: Meliisa