I was rather gutted to have missed Aura Noir when they played the UK recently headlining Live Evil festival; I’m sure one day our paths will cross though. It’s three years since they released any new material in the form of the excellent Hades Rise; of course before then the future was looking uncertain for the band after Aggressor was hospitalised after falling from a fourth floor window which left him without use of his feet meaning he could no longer play drums for the band (although still very active in the band playing guitar, bass and vocals). While we all wait for any news on a new album, it’s good that Peaceville are re-issuing their earlier albums. Black Thrash Attack was the debut album from the band which originally surfaced back in 1996 on the long-defunct Malicious Records and has previously not been so easy to get hold of.
This album, to put it in simple and very clichéd terms, does exactly what it says on the tin. It launches straight at you with no forewarning into an album of ugly hatefuelled menace and tears your face to shreds. ‘Conqueror’ rattles and rages forth and suddenly the guitar melody has me thinking of Annihilator track ‘Ligeia’. There’s a real underground basement vibe to this, production is raw and there is nothing nice or polished about it. Aggressor really spits venom through his harsh throaty rasps and would have many mere mortals trembling in a pile of their own mess.
It’s easy to see that Aura Noir take their sound essentially from the thrash metal old-guard with lots of Sodom, Kreator and Venom to be heard in their sound; tracks like ‘Eternally Your Shadow’ have an ominous blackened vibe and move a little further from their roots but then the riffs on ‘Fighting For Hell’ are thrash through and through albeit coated in a layer of filth. The way it gallops along, ‘Caged Wrath’ brings to mind Exodus’ ‘Piranha’ although it had a much rustier edge and a nastier bite. The rhythm really draws you in while the vocals kind of chatter manically and ferociously. It all has a more menacing edge to it and really encompasses the spirit of black metal in its rawest and most traditional sense. At times things do also slow down giving way to a hellish ambience, and ‘Sons Of Hades’ has a demonic quality to it. ‘Wretched Face Of Evil’ certainly strikes with an air of menace with its pestilent snaking riffs and general nastiness, while ‘Black Thrash Attack’ is underlined by a dark bulging bassline as the notes are drawn out before unleashing a frenzied thrash attack that will definitely cause mayhem in the moshpit.
All in all this is a killer album that keeps the pace all the way to the end and if you’re after some raw, aggressive, filthy, nasty, violent black-thrash then this is essential listening!
http://www.myspace.com/auranoir
Luci Herbert
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