Breaking Benjamin
Aurora


2.2
poor

Review

by Simon K. STAFF
January 24th, 2020 | 40 replies


Release Date: 2020 | Tracklist

Review Summary: The sound of heaven, if it had a terrible mix.

For all intents and purposes Aurora is, at the very least, a cute idea. If Aurora slipped under your radar, a quick synopsis would go something like this: it’s a pseudo-celebration that reimagines some of Breaking Benjamin’s “biggest” songs with the concept of Aurora in mind. Aurora, for those unaware, is the name penned to the famous Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis light shows – or as they’re more commonly known, the Northern and Southern Lights. It’s earth’s natural light show, caused by electrically charged particles that break away from the sun and get caught up in the earth’s atmosphere; earth’s gases burn away at these particles and thus create the astonishing lights and colours we see from the Aurora. If you’re wondering why I’m turning this into a science lesson, the point I’m ultimately making is the Aurora theme fits with Breaking Benjamin’s current aesthetics pretty faithfully. 2018’s Ember mainly centres around humanity’s self-destruction and failures, but astrology, space and science fiction play a pertinent role in delivering these motifs. So, the very nature of Aurora taking this ethereal design feels like a well-suited successor to Ember, and one that could bring a different feeling to these once familiar songs. Ember’s finest track “The Dark of You” is a cordial embrace of this type of sound, so on paper it seems fairly obvious that I would bask in Aurora’s tranquillity, and adulate the band for diverting their creativity into a much-needed new direction.

Aurora’s proclivity for taking hard-hitting chug numbers like “Tourniquet” and “Red Cold River” and stripping them down to skeletal, acoustic husks is a neat idea. However, this isn’t the first time we’ve had this stripped back approach to songs; the band’s 2004 EP So Cold had a really raw and impassioned version of “So Cold” – a bristly rendition that holds my favourite vocal performance from any of the available versions. In spite of the raw sound quality, it stands to be a really great highlight: it’s literally just Ben and the acoustic backing of his band, pouring his soul into the song to deliver a different viewpoint of the track. Which, frankly, is all you can ask for from this type of style. With that being said, for those expecting the same level of passion and melodic variety here, prepare to be somewhat disappointed. It seems the focus here fell onto crafting a pristine, production-heavy polish around these lean templates, rather than correlating ideas that could have changed the dynamic of a song with organic means. As a result, there was a detachment that came from listening to these songs the more I went back to them. I’ll openly admit that my preference for the So Cold version of “So Cold” is more favourable, simply because Ben’s vocal performance is far more emotionally charged. Less is more, and for all the bells and whistles you can throw at a track these days – depending on the context – for me it always boils down to the human element a song brings. But considering the nature of this LP, which centres around vocals and acoustic instruments, there’s a surprising disconnect from that element here.

So I’ll get straight to brass tacks; the biggest problem with Aurora is, ironically, its production. When you’re putting all your eggs into one basket, you had better make sure the handle doesn’t break. For a record that’s ostensibly stripped back, the amount of ideas being thrown into this dense soup is eye bulging. The mixing in particular is unserviceable, flat, heedless and damages a lot of the potential these tracks could have had. The biggest detriment, if you can overlook the string and acoustic instruments merging together like a Society orgy party, is the guest vocal spots, which inadvertently deprive the songs of their vibe and true potential. Like most of the pieces here, “Red Cold River” starts off instrumentally meagre but eventually swells right up to a chorus representative of a canvas with too much paint spattered onto it; myriads of harmonies, melodies, strings and instruments spilling into one another, muddling the narrative and leaving you at a loss on where to put your attention. It also doesn’t help matters when Spencer Chamberlain’s whiny performance clashes against Ben’s with calamitous results. But then, the same goes for most of the additional vocalists here who are, to put it bluntly, hindrances to the tracks. There’s an alternative version of “Far Away” which proves the point that these guest-supported versions do more damage than good. While the song itself is far from perfect – being the only new song on here, and one that suffers horribly from the dreaded and stale dark-and-light lyrical mantra he’s shackled to – its simplicity for having Ben solely at the helm, vocally, works wonders for the tone and execution of the track.

I’ve never been a fan of the production to their last couple of records, they sound muddy and dense for all the wrong reasons, but I don’t really understand how they can mess up a sound designed to be humble and earthly. It’s not even so much the guests’ fault that they sound off, blame needs to be put on how it was all pieced together. The overall sound to Aurora is sterile, flaccid and muddled, it’s that simple. Sure, the band successfully make an aesthetic representative of the spiritual glamour of the Aurora, thanks to the orchestral layers which bring a decent portion of melancholy and spirituality to the table, but at the end of the day, the emotion just isn’t there and it all comes across artificial. It doesn’t help that Ben’s performance throughout the entire album remains stubbornly impotent and unwilling to deviate from the tried formula of the original versions, largely due to the band banking on vocal support making the alterations. All of the harmonies and guest spots bring that differentiation to the table, while Ben sings his parts stoically and to the letter of their original compositions. A minor niggle I have with this release also stems from the marketing, which has gone on to state that the band is reimagining some of their biggest songs. Whether this is down to royalty issues with previous members remains to be seen – and it’s somewhat subjective on what you would consider to be their “biggest songs” – but the tracklist is largely underwhelming and mainly consists of tracks from their most recent efforts. This to me is a wasted opportunity, because if there was ever a time to go back and shake up some old hits you would think it was now – with Breaking Benjamin’s newest incarnation firmly settled down and ready to give its own take on these celebratory pieces.

Since 2015, I feel like the only time Breaking Benjamin is being consistent is when they’re being inconsistent. They’ve got some good ideas, and they’ve even had some good tracks since Dark Before Dawn, but there’s a number of the same problems that continuously plague their albums – production always being one of them. This could have been great. It’s something that should have not only been a self-congratulatory project and celebration for the fans, but a body of work that bridges the old with the new. If this had a better production, would the songs display that quality? Personally, it would have salvaged a lot of the enjoyment missing, but even then, there’s a sore lack of that same passion behind the unrefined 2004 acoustic “So Cold” rendition. I mean, look, it isn’t offensively bad or anything, after all, they’re working with some solid material here. But with a bad production and a lack of enthusiasm from Burnley, these once-promising interpretations already feel redundant and inferior next to their source materials.

FORMAT//EDITIONS: DIGITAL/̶/̶C̶D̶/̶/̶V̶I̶N̶Y̶L̶/̶/̶V̶A̶R̶I̶O̶U̶S̶ ̶B̶U̶N̶D̶L̶E̶S̶

PACKAGING: N/A

SPECIAL EDITION BONUSES: N/A

ALBUM STREAM//PURCHASE: https://store.breakingbenjamin.com/



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user ratings (92)
2.4
average
other reviews of this album
xtrole (3.5)
An acoustic remix album that features some solid guest vocals....



Comments:Add a Comment 
xtrole
January 24th 2020


82 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5

I'm a sucker for good guest vocals, so I liked it. Red Cold River is my favorite, but I enjoyed them all.

Gnocchi
Staff Reviewer
January 24th 2020


18262 Comments

Album Rating: 1.5

Wait, this is a thing. I thought it was someone's idea of a joke

Brabiz
January 24th 2020


2323 Comments


Can’t even lie, i dig the new So Cold quite a bit... mostly for nostalgia’s sake. Otherwise this, like the band is painfully generic and boring.

Aerisavion
January 24th 2020


3145 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

Forgot this was dropping

Dewinged
Staff Reviewer
January 24th 2020


32191 Comments


Summary won. Brvtal.

hobblepot
January 24th 2020


2953 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5

Bens voice is over processed to shit

maximomckinnon
January 24th 2020


88 Comments


this album has no reason to exist in the form that it does

KjSwantko
January 24th 2020


12207 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5

Nice write up. I'll prob check it out of boredom in the near future. Lord that cover art is terrible though.

Evenoss
January 24th 2020


336 Comments


Well this is already the worst album art of the year

William21
January 24th 2020


923 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

Well most of this is dumb, but I do dig the new version of Dear Agony with Lacey

Jamdbz
January 24th 2020


1554 Comments


for all intensive purposes

TheGreatQ
January 24th 2020


3015 Comments


“Dear Agony” is pretty close to perfect and also was the only one I was interested in so hey, I got what I wanted out of this.

gordodustin
January 24th 2020


536 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

One thing the reviewer and many others may not be realizing is that probably 90% of this album is just Ben's original vocals from the time that the other albums were recorded. Other than "Far Away" and maybe one other track, it's simple cut and paste with nearly inaudible harmonies from the guest vocalists. I kept waiting for someone other than Ben to get at least one verse from a song, and it never happened. After 15 years of being a BB fan, these problems were easy to recognize and this whole endeavor felt unnecessary and flat out lazy.

SrpskiCekic
January 24th 2020


185 Comments


I love this

CriticalMyth
January 24th 2020


61 Comments

Album Rating: 2.5

"Failure" and "Dear Agony" work for me, but almost in spite of the production, which continues to be mired in a muddy, sludgy aesthetic that buries the most interesting things they are trying to do. It bothers me that I listen to their work and often think, "This has a lot of potential, if they would stop strangling it to death."

KjSwantko
January 24th 2020


12207 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5

Gonna listen through this again to make sure, but actually really enjoying this. Much rather listen to this than their regular versions.

SymbolicInTime
January 25th 2020


7380 Comments


Dear Agony is pretty dang good. Gonna check the rest later

GhostB1rd
January 25th 2020


7938 Comments


Holy fuck that album art is atrocious.

Storm In A Teacup
January 25th 2020


46486 Comments


Oh my no.

Aerisavion
January 25th 2020


3145 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

“Ember’s finest track “The Dark of You” is a cordial embrace of this type of sound, so on paper it seems fairly obvious that I would bask in Aurora’s tranquillity“



Yeah ‘Dark of You’ is probably my favourite post-hiatus BB track so was kinda hoping the same thing..



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