Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Aurora Sunset - 2011 The Loving Kind


Band : Aurora Sunset
Album : The Loving Kind
Release Year : 2011
Genre : Post-Hardcore | Mathrock | Experimental

Tracklist :
01. Good Morning
02. The Loving Kind
03. Boo-Tah
04. Nirvana
05. The Kick Push Youth
06. It's Music
07. Starnger In The Mirror
08. Fusion Amor
09. Church People
10. Kill Patterns
11. Singularity
12. The Start of a New Life

On the one hand, Aurora Sunset sounds crazy. On the other hand, wonderful! This band can really “show off”- in a very great way- threading intricacy and playfulness, while simultaneously being audience-repellent to weed out the weak. These young Californians pull off some very seriously difficult tricks! Loving what I’m hearing!
Their songs can be extremely unapologetic and very frontal. Though, they are not a metal core band, Aurora Sunset can dish out the heavy as well as they can dish out the palate-balancing, subtle beauty of being beautifully subtle. One of two frontmen, singer Kyle Blevins alternates his melodic high-pitched emotion (like Atlanta, Georgia’s The Rise Of Science) with second frontman, Post-Punk/Metal growler, Jess Medina.

Aurora Sunset’s newest endeavour The Loving Kind is best of both worlds. The effort is unafraid to venture, yet grounded in knowing how to balance ‘crazy’ with ‘respite’. They scrape your face off with one song part, then gently pat the wounds with cotton balls soaked in anaesthetic and aloe. It’s normal to hear synths in a heavy band; and Jarred Wright does his part for Aurora. But electric piano?! That’s just one of the many things that made me realise the divergent potential of this new band!

“Good Morning” & “Boo-Tah” have melodies that stick, minced with extreme breakdowns containing Medina’s guttural bellows and growls that switch duty with Blevin’s high, high pitch from hell. Badass! My testies would fall off if I tried to reach notes that high! Part Fugazi, part Mt. St. Helens, mixed with the spooky, busy elements of Circa Survive and the label, Equal Vision, The Loving Kind offers up gems that glimpse a bright future. “The Kick Push Youth” plus “Stranger in the Mirror” equals nice, melodious and calm… until the great speedy sections! Both alternate, in nature, from Circa Survive or Coheed & Cambria, then to a seeming desire to visit the crazy flat of Mr. Bungle! :D

“Fusion Amor” takes the route of a harmonious, percussive cacophony. This great tune has atmospheric guitars, by Brandon Wright.  Jordan Felten’s low resonant, tympanic floor-tom and riveting rack-tom action shows off his chops. Blevins and Wright#2 give us a smart, lazy vocal in slow freefall and in-tandem with the Beatlesque, cello-like synthesisers. It’s like Englishmen XTC were covering a George Harrison epic for the new Dukes of Stratosphere. Some of the production treatment on “Fusion” is a bit heavy, with all the various percussiveness pinging back and forth, but ‘the feel is still felt,’ so to speak. “Church People” shows off some snappily low-string-guitar-slapping by Brandon Wright, mixed with synth-bass and the well-appropriate, jazzy electric-piano by Jarred Wright. Lyrically dark and melodically sombre, this one also features great drumming by Felten.

This band definitely ain’t boring. They know how to keep your attention- if not disturb some normal conventions. My more critical observations would point to spots in which the highest of high pitches by Blevins seem a wee bit strained and over-pushed. Yet, there is a familiar twinge of vocal timbre like Circa Survive’s Anthony Green (Philadelphia US) or Bearfoot Beware’s Thom Bradley (Leeds UK), both favs of mine, so he’s forgiven these occasional little things. It’s ironic that Aurora Sunset reminds me at times of The Rise Of Science. Aurora has two brothers: Jarred and Brandon Wright. The Rise Of Science has a song called “Just Like The Wright Brothers”. Hmmm. Aurora Sunset’s twelve-song The Loving Kind is a great endeavour and now one of my favs. -Mike Burrell  (indiemusicnews)






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