You can support Terra Relicta by donating! Please, do so, and thank you!
Band: Marianas Rest
Album title: Auer
Release date: 24 March 2023
Label: Napalm Records
Genre: Melancholic Doom Metal, Melodic Death Metal
Tracklist:
01. Auer
02. Diseased
03. Light Reveals Our Wounds
04. White Cradle
05. The Ground Still Burns
06. Fear Travels Fast
07. The Hanging Blade
08. Sirens (feat. Aaron Stainthorpe)
The Finnish ultimate sonic melancholy is back to take us into a world full of longing and sadness. Marianas Rest, the sextet from the coastal town Kotka, is one of the most unfairly overlooked bands in the world; the band's Facebook page, for example, has only around 5000 followers, though it deserves at least 100 times more. Auer is the fourth full-length for them, and I hardly believed that they could do once again such a good job as with the two-years-ago-released masterpiece Fata Morgana. Yet, they managed to go even deeper into the sore of very darkness to compose eight songs which captivate with the very first riff and don't let go until the last sound gets played.
Marianas Rest - masters of extreme melody and darkness; they juxtapose the Finnish melancholy and sadness of a cold, harsh winter landscape with absolute perfection. I can't say that Auer is way better than the previous album, Fata Morgana, which brought forth incredible emotions, but it's at least there, if not ahead of it -by bringing the feeling of the pure essence of sweet sorrow. It's an invigorating, epic, beautifully crafted piece of music that will withstand the test of time. Powerful, atmospheric and utterly dynamic. The music is hard to define; for sure, doom and melo-death, and some extreme dark metal, but the Auer music is also sweet, atmospheric and many times with an ambient-gothic edge.
Heavy, thick, melodic and driving guitars pave the way to expressive emotional yet harsh vocals in a mesmerizing way. The rhythmic line is often semi-slow-paced, but sometimes it erupts with unsettling power and density and triggers a weird inner feeling of immortality. Outstanding guitar leads often get melted into an integrity of multi-layered sounds that is, at the same time, filled with abrupt brutality and gentle sadness that paints a picturesque sonic world - yet spiced up with certain cinematic parts.
It's also hard to expose a track or two; Auer works best as an integrity of all songs. Nevertheless, "Light Reveals Our Wounds" with its soul-melting riffing and cinematic insertions, the mystically melancholic and bittersweet melodic "White Cradle", or the beautiful ballad featuring the legend of gloom & doom, Aaron Stainthorpe (My Dying Bride), are pieces that nobody who is into melodic, atmospheric or melancholic metal should miss. One gloomy masterpiece after another, with epic proportions and smoothly gliding pathos. It's an album that simply calls for more. The haunting "Fear Travels Fast" and the out-of-this-world epic tale of sadness, "The Hanging Blade", are more than solid proof of the qualities this band has. Auer is so very powerful, intense, catchy, addictive and dynamic; it's a battle, a struggle, a sonic work which touches you deeply, whether you want it or not.
Marianas Rest did an album that is violent but not that much in a musical sense, more emotionally, as it is a real heart-rending machine going into heights and breaking all the boundaries ever known within the extreme metal genre. There's no question about it, Marianas Rest proved with their last two albums that they are one of the most enthralling, remarkable and exceptional bands right now. Auer is for sure a strong contestant for the album of the year and showcases the band's epic facets and extraordinary songwriting talents. It's a colossal and immersive album that brings tears to your eyes, keeping you warm and welcome yet haunted and hopeless. Auer is pure art!
The review was written by Tomaz
Rating: 10/10
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
