(written by Islander)
Six years have passed since Halloween last occurred on a Saturday, and 11 more years will pass before it happens again, but it is indeed happening tomorrow, and on the verge of that most metal of holidays today has been a big day for new offerings of the devil’s music. We have one more offering for you before this weekday ends, a new song off a new album by Wisconsin’s Aronious in advance of the album’s release by The Artisan Era on November 13th.
The name of the album is The Ever Living Ones, and it follows two previous albums on the same label, Perspicacity (2020) and Irkalla (2022). This new one, which is 11 songs long, is yet another series of steps in the band’s increasingly fascinating musical evolution. The one we have for you today is “Antediluvian” — but before we get to it, you should really listen (or re-listen) to the album’s first single, “Dawn of Diathan“.
When we first heard that song, we impulsively spilled a lot of words about it — these words:
“Dawn of Diathan” begins with a melody (or anti-melody) that’s simultaneously monstrous and dismal. The layered instruments create hallucinatory sensations that writhe and moan, that seem alien and ill, dissonant and near-miasmatic. But as nerve-shuddering as that experience is, it doesn’t completely distract from the rampant escapades of the drummer (Kevin Paradis) or the sewer-pipe reverberations of the bass.
The vocals are themselves ugly, the kind of grit-choked and near-strangled gutturals that sound profoundly foul and heartless. So it’s a startling surprise when a reverb-ed singing voice woozily wails way up high in tandem with those pernicious growls.
In many respects, the music remains unsettling and hallucinatory, but it’s a changing vision. Backed by a kind of off-kilter lurching groove, an unusual instrument (maybe a violin? maybe a woodwind of some kind?) traces an exotic Eastern melody but one that’s melodically linked to that strange opening riff, one that brings to mind an ancient snake charmer entrancing a cobra.
Meanwhile, the drumming continues seizing attention with a panoply of inventive and unexpected flourishes, and the song’s vaporous, semi-poisonous, semi-hypnotic melodies continue to drift along while other accents flicker and chatter. The band also make room for yet another exotic solo and a final appearance of that striking singing voice.
And now we turn to “Antediluvian“. Like the first single, but in different ways, it provides a remarkable compendium of thrills and chills.
Some of the chills come first. In a surprising contrast with the first single, this one opens with a simple guitar melody that slowly weaves its way forward, dreamy yet also sinister and supernatural in its mood. Ethereal shimmering tones swell, and then Aronious shatter their spell with a long beastly growl, thunderous drums, and guitars that screech and contort.
This ensuing outburst is still chilling, though orders of magnitude more demented than the song’s overture. Dissonant tones clang and swirl; the drums snap but also erupt in hyperactive bursts; in the upper reaches the music sears; and those ferocious growls seem to announce that a beastly imperium is at hand.
Aronious also inflict an amalgam of pile-driving brutality and shrill, seizure-like guitar flurries as surreal wails float above them. But the song is constantly in flux, and so swaths of misty sound take over and then wondrously ring, like a sonic representation of beckoning apparitions.
Aronious follow that with another outburst of fast-driving and mind-bending mayhem, but this time joined by solemn choral singing that sends chills down the spine in tandem with serrated-edge snarls. Those slow and haunted clean voices create a riveting contrast with the multi-layered convulsions beneath them.
ARONIOUS is:
Brandon Brown: Vocals/Lyrics
Ryan Brumlic: Lead Guitar, Sound Design, Backing Vocals
Nick Weyers: Rhythm Guitar
Jason Bouwer: Bass
Kevin Paradis: Drums
The Ever Living Ones was produced by Aronious and was mixed and mastered by Nick Weyers. The surreal, eye-catching cover art is the work of Samuel Nelson. The Artisan Era will release the album on CD and digital formats, and it’s available to order now:
PRE-ORDER (U.S.):
https://www.theartisanerastore.com/collections/aronious
https://aronious.bandcamp.com/album/the-ever-living-ones
PRE-ORDER (EU):
https://shop.season-of-mist.com/collections/band-music-aronious
ARONIOUS:
https://www.facebook.com/aroniousmetal
https://www.instagram.com/aroniouswi
https://aronious.bandcamp.com