The Ritual Aura
Laniakea

4.5
superb

Review

by Dmax28 USER (22 Reviews)
August 28th, 2015 | 30 replies

Release Date: 2015 | Tracklist

Review Summary: Groovy slickly refined sci-fi tech death shred.

In the crowded technical death metal genre it can be hard for new bands to make an impact. It's a genre where even dazzling technicality seems to have diminishing returns. However, there is always still the opportunity for great bands to make an impact and make a fresh sounding album. With the debut album Laniakea The Ritual Aura have done just that.

The Ritual Aura is a band from Australia whose new sci-fi themed album makes a case as a fresh (for its genre), highly entertaining, and addictive record. The music is high speed and relentless with note choice leaning toward the more progressive/sci-fi side rather than the “classic” metal side. A lot of what you would expect is here: slick riffs, warping time signatures, fast as humanly possible playing, and the ability to stop the music dead on a whim. But it is all done as well as ever. It sounds like a mix of The Faceless' Planetary Duality and Necrophagist's Epitaph by using an alien theme and extreme high speeds that manage to be so catchy at the same time. In fact, one of the biggest strengths here are the motivic repeated riffs and rhythms that even out nicely with the overall sporadic nature of this brand of high speed tech death. Christian Muenzner even makes an appearence! Other strengths include the absolute clarity of the instrument tones and production, unique and immense layering, and high speeds never sacrificing the album's driving melodic force. The lead guitar work here manages to take some of the signature elements of tech death shred and freshen it up with imaginative guitar harmonization and chord choice. And the bass player does it all on the NS Stick; often tapping his way through whole songs. Hell yes!

The vocals are usually mid-low growls but sometimes go to high shrieks. Their phrasing is good, but this album is extremely instrumentally driven, even more than most tech death. At only 25 minutes it could have used one more track to flesh out the experience. Essentially the true final track is an instrumental that gives the end of the album a nice “jam it out” tone but doesn't do anything specific to take advantage of being an instrumental and is ultimately overshadowed by the other tracks. The official final track is also the title track but disappointingly is just over a minute long of ambiance. Thus the end of the album is weaker than the proceeding seven tracks.

If you are looking for a completely new take on extreme metal this isn't it. But if you are looking for extremely technical death metal that adheres to the genre with refinement and excellence this is one release you don't want to miss. With a conviction to some of the best elements of the style and superb execution, you will truly feel like you are witnessing devious alien machinations.

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