Hellthrasher Productions consequently do their
work in searching for some interesting new bands around the globe and their
recent findings are bands like Abysme, War Possession, Engulfed and Auroch. My
listening session of all their releases I decided to begin with an album titled
“From Forgotten Worlds” from Canadian Auroch. I honestly never heard of this
band before, but Metal Archives says there’s an impressive dose of four demos
and some splits, which Auroch has recorded prior to their debut album, so you
can definitely say they’re not coming out of nowhere. But really the first
thing, which caught my attention was a truly awesome front artwork of “From
Forgotten Worlds”, with this sort of “Alien” movie feeling to it, which I like
a lot. So it was obviously yet another reason why I really wanted to listen to
Auroch as first.
My impression after few spins of “From
Forgotten Worlds” is quite mixed. From one hand I can see a potential in
Auroch, the fact that this band is way more original than most of the other
young acts, but from the other hand the style of Auroch is not my personal
favourite and while I can pick up some parts of “From Forgotten Worlds”, which
I liked, then there are more than few, which I’m not so fond of. Auroch plays
sort of technical dark death metal and one can say there’s also a huge
progressive influence in their riffs, so the overall style of Auroch is
definitely way different to most of the stuff you may know and despite some
similarities to this or another band (Death, but way more brutal?) it has
rather different feeling and atmosphere. And I don’t know… there definitely is
something intriguing in this band, I mean their progressive style is often
colliding with their passion to play as fast and furiously as possible, when it
often gets close to the grinding death metal, with the vocals more obscure and
harsh, almost black metal ones. I must admit though that Auroch may actually be
one of the very few bands, where I can say that I don’t like their faster parts
so much. And it’s not the way how Auroch shifts between these tempos and moods,
but rather the fact that the music tends to become completely chaotic and
cacophonic when played fast is the reason why I don’t like it so much.
And while there definitely are some truly
killer parts, like in the title song or in “Fleshless Ascension”, where I liked
that slower, more melancholic part and when there are some almost Morbid
Angel-esque riffs in “Dregs of Sanity” or “Slaves to a Flame Undying” then they
will always be overshadowed by those more annoying fragments. “Dregs of
Sanity”, with its technically advanced riffing and drumming and complicated
structures is kind of a worse example, in my opinion. At some point I just
cannot focus what the hell is Auroch playing, because the whole music becomes
too cacophonic and goes in the direction, which I don’t like so much. And on
top of all that I must also say that I don’t like the vocals’ arrangements. I
just don’t like the way they (vocals) sound and how they’re performed and here
I can give you “Pathogenic Talisman (For Total Temporal Collapse)” as an
example.
After several listening of “From Forgotten
Worlds” I can say that this music just doesn’t speak to me. Although I admit
that Auroch is an exceptional band, for their original and uncommon attitude
towards the music, but it just doesn’t work for me. It is not memorable at all,
it is too weird and this is probably why I swallow those simpler and more
straight forward parts of “From Forgotten Worlds” like it was my last breath (like
those few exceptionally good riffs from the title song or the opening theme for
“Tundra Moon”), because the rest is almost suffocating me with their dose of
sounds. So, what can I say… I hoped that “From Forgotten Worlds” will be
something groundbreaking and I feel very disappointed. I think I can say that
this is the album I liked least from all the recent Hellthrasher releases.
Standout tracks: “From Forgotten Worlds”
Final rate: 60/100
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