May 2024 - Feature Release - The Pit Edition

So just like that we find that a new month is upon us which of course means that we’ll be nominating a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we’re asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter. We’re really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on our chosen releases so don’t be shy.

This month’s feature release for The North has been nominated by me, Sonny. It is the 1996 debut from norwegian blackened thrashers Aura Noir, Black Thrash Attack.

https://metal.academy/releases/6215

Truth be told, I was aware of Aura Noir for quite some time, I bought their Deep Dreams of Hell comp not long after it's release in 2005, but they never really grabbed my attention that much. Then sometime during the last year, on a whim, I went back and checked out their debut album, Black Thrash Attack and my opinion was completely turned on it's head as it blew me away with it's viscerally aggressive delivery.

Released when thrash metal had seen better days, Black Thrash Attack deserves praise for rediscovering the aggression of top-drawer thrash at a time when tech-thrash was the only real game in town.

Anyway, here's my review:

Aura Noir are one of those bands that everyone knows, but very few talk about. Formed by Aggressor and Apollyon, who were both active in the Norwegian black metal underground, they were later joined by Mayhem guitarist Rune Eriksen (aka Blasphemer), prior to the recording of this debut full-length, Black Thrash Attack. By 1996 thrash metal was a shambling corpse that hadn't even recognised it's own demise. It's champions were fallen - Metallica had decided the way forward was trying to add an increasingly lengthening string of zeroes to their bank accounts, Kreator were embracing mediocrity and even Slayer were flailing around to such an extent that recording an album of hardcore punk covers seemed like a good move to them. Into this turgid scene, Black Thrash Attack was thrust like an adrenaline shot to the heart of thrash metal's inert body, causing it to rear upwards with an almighty gasp as life entered it once more. Taking the sound of the burgeoning black metal scene and regressing it to it's earliest days as an offshoot of thrash, Aura Noir injected vitality and good old-fashioned excitement into the once proud beast, producing possibly the best thrash album, at that point in time, since Rust In Peace.

Black Thrash Attack takes the riffs of European legends like Kreator, Bathory and Celtic Frost and marries them to raw and rabid blasphemous black metal to produce a vicious and visceral version of blackened thrash that sounds like the missing link between first- and second-wave black metal, with Darkthrone's early rawness being a particular touchstone. The riffs are all thrash, but the vocals, aesthetic and production values are raw and savage black metal through and through.

Aggressor and Apollyon alternate songwriting duties, with Aggressor being responsible for writing the odd-numbered tracks and Apollyon the even. Somewhat symetrically, they each perform vocals, bass and drums to the other's tracks. This approach offers up the risk of an uneven sound to the album, but I think that if you didn't know about it, it wouldn't be that obvious. Between this and it's predecessor the duo had added future Mayhem guitarist Blasphemer to expand the lineup to a trio, which was an inspired move and certainly adds meat to the bones of the band's sound, his impressive riffing being one of the albums real strengths. Despite the crusty rawness of the production, the playing is terrific and is inordinately precise with the drumming in particular surprising me at how accomplished it sounds for multi-instrumentalists, with Aggressor especially impressing in that regard. Sure it's not Dave Lombardo or even Fenriz, but it is still energetic and exact, with some sublime blasting from time to time.

Let's face it, this isn't sophisticated music and probably won't impress the more cerebrally demanding metalhead, but for those of us who thrive on guts and aggression and who value adrenaline-fuelled headbanging over chin-stroking reflection then Aura Noir turned in a classic with their debut full-length. This is dirty, nasty and aggressive and pushes all the right buttons, breathing new life into the rotting corpse of late nineties' thrash metal.

4.5/5

Here's my review:

Those of us that were as heavily involved in the tape trading scene as I was back in the 1990's might remember just how much hype there was around Oslo-based blackened thrash metallers Aura Noir around the time that their first couple of proper releases hit the shelves, partially due to the involvement of respected metal musicians Carl-Michael Eide (aka Aggressor - Infernö/Ved Buens Ende/Cadaver/Dødheimsgard/Satyricon/Ulver/Virus) & Ole Jørgen Moe (aka Apollyon - Coffin Storm/Cadaver/Dødheimsgard/Immortal) who both shared the instrumental contributions equally in a multi-instrumental fashion. I don't believe I ever heard either of Aura Noir's demo tapes but their 1995 debut E.P. "Dreams Like Deserts" was an outstanding way to introduce themselves to the underground & is still my pick of the band's discography to this day. My enjoyment of that release would see me urgently requesting a dubbed cassette copy of the Norwegians' 1996 debut album "Black Thrash Attack" as soon as it hit the lists of my fellow traders. Aura Noir's debut album saw them bringing guitarist Rune Eriksen (RUÏM/Twilight of the Gods/Vltimas/Ava Inferi/Mayhem/Nader Sadek) into the fold for the first time in what must surely go down as somewhat of an extreme metal supergroup & one that presented their musical roots very openly through their music too. Much like Aura Noir's other full-lengths, I don't recall enjoying "Black Thrash Attack" as much as I did "Dreams Like Deserts" so I haven't returned to it since but I do recall finding it fairly enjoyable so Sonny's feature release nomination has come as a pleasant surprise.

"Black Thrash Attack" is every bit the record that's advertised on the front cover as you'll rarely find a more blatant & pure example of the blackened thrash sound. It's raw & aggressive but, as with so many of Aura Noir's sources of inspiration, it doesn't take itself too seriously either. You won't find anything terribly original here. In fact, you can expect a totally retro vibe with the First Wave of Black Metal being the dominating influence. From track to track you'll no doubt pickup parts that have at the very least been inspired by early Bathory, Venom, Slayer & particularly Sodom whose influence appears quite regularly. The vocals, on the other hand, predominantly tend to sit in Quorthon (Bathory) & Nocturno Culto (Darkthrone) territory & are one of the most appealing elements of a record. Like so many of the founding fathers of black/death/thrash metal did, this sees Aura Noir fitting very nicely into that groove between multiple extreme metal genres & also sees the Norwegians absolutely maxing out on their underground appeal with the kvlt elitists out there.

The album kicks off in stellar fashion with four really strong tracks opening proceedings & by the end of "Wretched Face of Evil" I was starting to wonder if I'd been a little harsh on "Black Thrash Attack" back in the day as the material seemed to be of a higher standard than I recalled. Unfortunately, the remaining six tracks don't match that quality though, despite the majority of them being pretty enjoyable & undeniably thrashy tunes in their own right. "Destructor" is the one song where I find myself struggling for engagement but everything else has a lovely, familiar old-school vibe about it, sometimes because I've literally heard some of the riffs a thousand times before (see the blatant Sodom & Slayer plagiarism in "The One Who Smite" for example).

I think "Black Thrash Attack" probably falls into that category where I really want to like it more than I actually do. Those first four tracks are excellent & immediately see me dropping my guard but, once I've dug into the record in more detail, I find that it doesn't quite hold up to greater scrutiny. There isn't a genuine classic here (although "Conqueror" tries very hard to get there) & that's probably another reason why I can't achieve a more solid rating but the B side simply isn't of four-star standard in my opinion. It's respectable, I admit, but I can't claim that it gets my blood flowing to the same extent as the A side does. This failing leaves Aura Noir with a decent blackened thrash record that should appeal to fans of bands like Nifelheim, Destroyer 666 & Desaster & may also be the band's strongest full-length but it's one that's unlikely to see me reaching for it all that often in the future.

3.5

Interestingly, I really dig the cover version of Venom's "Heaven's on Fire" that appears as a bonus track on the Spotify version of the record & feel that it would have improved the album if it had of been included on the original release.