Style: Atmospheric black metal
Primary Emotions/Themes: The glory of the fall, the changing of seasons
Thoughts: Birds call in the distance, the wind blows through the leaves... autumn is upon us. These sounds paired with an acoustic guitar is the prelude to everything contained within Autumn Aurora, and I can't think of a better introduction to the album than this.
Drudkh has a bit of a spotty discography with me. When they create a good album, its among the best in my collection. When they miss it's a pretty bad miss. Autumn Aurora leans much more towards the good side than the poor side of their musical spectrum.
Some of the songs are a bit lacking. Sunwheel is easily the weakest song on the record. The main riff feels a bit hollow in comparison to the riffs that I know the band can write. Even with the keyboards and layers the song still feels like it was incomplete or lacking one more layer to make it truly exceptional. It's not all bad though, the riff right around 5 minutes fills out the song nicely and creates a wonderful atmosphere. Maybe its the addition of the acoustic guitar or the chord change... whatever it is - if the song had this riff as the basis it would be a much stronger song.
Immediately after the weakest song Drudkh comes storming out with Wind of the Night Forests. Not only is this song one of the best on the album, it's one of the best that the band ever produced. Everything that was in Sunwheel is here as well: layers of guitars, thick keyboards as a backing instrument, slow but meaningful drums, layers of acoustic guitars, and other details hidden in the mix for the listener to find. It just shows how meaningful how all these things combined can become or how impotent they can sound if not structured correctly.
Autumn Aurora sounds like the changing of the leaves. It sounds like the death of summer and the onset of winter. It channels the sorrow of years of loss and years still to come of suffering. There is no happiness here, there is no hope. This is a chronicle of the world and the brutal truth that resides in it.
There is also beauty in sorrow, tragedy, loss. It's that beauty that Drudkh has tapped into here... instead of the absolute desperation, it finds the soul of the suffering and channels it into the wonder that is Autumn Aurora.
Written August 7th 2024
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