Lunar Aurora - Ars Moriendi (2001)^{Release ID: 6765}

I was stoked when this Lunar Aurora album was still available for me to select in this month's Review Draft for The North. I'm a big fan of the band's later work, particularly 2007's Andacht, but had never managed to check out any of their discography prior to 2004. I'll say straight up that this doesn't sound like the band's later albums, which sit comfortably in the atmospheric black metal subgenre. This release is much more primal and raw, taking influence from numerous classic 90s black metal albums while forging a strong identity of its own. There's also a big symphonic aspect, to the point where I'm shocked no-one appears to consider Ars Moriendi to be a symphonic black metal release. Emperor is an obvious influence,  and while the symphonics may not contribute to the whole album, they play a big role for much of it. There are lots of other sound effects that appear throughout too, such as wind, the howling of wolves and chimes, creating a wintry atmosphere that the majestic black metal riffs back up perfectly. I can also hear early Satyricon and particularly Abigor, putting this album into my absolute soft spot.

If you're at all like me, you like your black metal vocals to be really fucking evil sounding, and thankfully bassist Whyrhd really delivers on this front. Along with his fantastic, albeit traditional black metal shrieks, he at times sounds completely possessed, as though the demon from The Evil Dead escaped from the basement and joined a German black metal band. Add this manic performance to the top-notch riffs and intense drumming and you've got all the ingredients of a classic, but sadly it doesn't quite live up to that. There are just a couple of tracks that don't quite match up to the better parts of the album, and third track Kältetod inexplicably contains a pretty dodgy snare sound that I find really distracting. I can't fathom how this happened, but I have noticed that there are at least a couple of different mixes of the album available. Perhaps this track has a different mix, or maybe it was just recorded separately? I don't know, but it sadly stops me from giving Ars Moriendi the 4.5 stars that it otherwise deserves. Seriously, if you enjoy 90s black metal, and can handle some symphonics with your blastbeats, you should check this hidden gem out.