Above Aurora: Myriad Woes (2024, War Anthem Records)

Above Aurora is a Polish black/doom metal band that was born in 2015 with the sole objective of capturing the gloomy landscapes of the worst nightmares that you can have throughout your life. Its only two members currently are the guitarist, vocalist and bassist V. and drummer O. (Oktawiusz Marusiak), who have been part of the band since its birth and to date have given life to three studio albums: Onwards Desolation (2016, Pagan Records), The Shrine of Deterioration (2020, Pagan Records) and the one at hand today, Myriad Woes (2024, War Anthem Records).

I was lucky enough to discover them when they accompanied Mgla and Martwa Aura during their first tour of Spain in 2019, more specifically at the Sala Bóveda in Barcelona whose show was recorded in video format and released on CD in 2021 under the title Live In Barcelona. I remember that concert well since their musical proposal dazzled me from the first moment and despite not knowing them, they completely captivated me, especially the voice of V., whose work as a vocalist in Myriad Woes is completely outstanding.

Above Aurora‘s third studio album Myriad Woes is made up of five songs whose duration ranges between five minutes, a fairly common average for this type of bands, and the eleven and a half minutes that Inner Whispers lasts, the first song on the album that is also technically instrumental if it weren’t for the vocal parts that participate punctually throughout its extensive duration. The result? An explosive combination of raw black metal and slow-cooked high-octane doom that grows inside you as you listen to it. The central part of Inner Whispers is my favorite since all kinds of ideas converge here creating a very black melody that, accompanied by O.‘s drums, makes it an astral journey to other dimensions of the most terrifying cosmic horror you can imagine.

With Spark we came across a much more classical proposal that manages to perfectly balance the dense guitar and bass lines with the powerful drums where V. introduces his voice in a not very subtle and at the same time not forced way, applying an aggressive vocal technique where his torn voice manages to accompany us along a rugged journey through the vast and sinister forests of our most primitive side. The same goes for Efforts To Fail where V. manages to introduce some more melodic guitar lines that contrast brilliantly with Spark‘s riffs. As the song progresses it becomes much more aggressive, shifting the balance towards a worked and tremendously well-produced black metal.

The last part of the album is composed by the doom Horns Of Dread whose dense and thick riffs run through in a very positive way and give Myriad Woes an additional layer of depth with Above Aurora leaving the record that good black metal is not about just banging the plates and shouting as if they were stabbing you, and that is something that the band works on in a masterful way. The same thing happens with the calm No More Shall The Boulder Descend, whose start is much more contained and, as in Inner Whispers, they introduce certain vocal elements during the first bars of the song to end up exploding everything into the air in the most aggressive way possible. Just as No More Shall The Boulder Descend begins and as Myriad Woes himself puts us in tune, Above Aurora subtly says goodbye to all of us with a heated display of black-tinged doom that covers everything it touches in darkness.

Tracklist:

1. Inner Whispers
2. Spark
3. Efforts To Fail
4. Horns Of Dread
5. No More Shall The Boulder Descend

Myriad Woes is set to be released on March 29th 2024 on CD, LP and in digital versions via War Anthem Records. It has been recorded at Antisound Studio with Michał Neithan Kiełbasa, mixed and mastered by Filip Hałucha at Heinrich House Studio.