REVIEW: Auroch - Taman Shud I usually follow Profound Lore pretty closely, checking out everything they release. But somehow, I slept on this. I cant make sense of it. The artwork really speaks to me, it came out on vinyl through Dark Descent and generally ticks a lot of my boxes of things to generally not miss out on... but it happened either way. But Taman Shud might just be one of the best Death Metal albums of the year and has been on non-stop heavy rotation since I discovered it. Auroch have a somewhat modern, yet organic approach to Death Metal. When I say modern, I mean that it fits right in with the more experimental Death Metal weve had the pleasure of hearing a lot throughout the last few years, but not everyone is doing it as well as these guys. You can tell that there is a bit of a Morbid Angel influence to their material, but Taman Shud is garnished with more dissonance and topped off with a somewhat middle eastern vibe. Therefor, the album title probably refers to the Persian phrase for ended. There also was a famous case of an unidentified man found dead on a beach in Australia, called The Taman Shud Case. I suggest you read up on it, its pretty interesting. Either way, Aurochs music, despite being pretty straight forward, creates a very intense, dark vibe. It has an aura of mistery to it, I dont know how else to explain it. The riffs on Taman Shud are truly mesmerizing and reach their climax in Voice of Gemini, which also scores with great vocal diversity and more dissonance than some of the other tracks. Speaking of vocals, most of the material on this album is dominated by low end growls, but they really go above and beyond in the mentioned song, through adding a desperate sounding, more midrange voice. I even wish there was more of this voice, as it brings a whole new element and emotion to Aurochs material. It comes up here and there throughout the album and I always love it. However, the rest of the material is just as convincing, carried by an organic, yet Metal sounding production - nothing to complain here. Like I said earlier, Taman Shud is among of the best Death Metal albums of the year. It pretty much combines everything I like in the more experimental Death Metal realm and comes with the right amount of dissonance and atmosphere to stand out. Auroch managed to bundle all of that into a relatively compact package, which makes it even better. The album is only 25 min long and I appreciate that. If youre able to create so much depth in such little time, youre clearly doing something right. If you havent yet, get into this band and album. Ill be right back, checking out the rest of their discography...
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 11:52:47 +0000