Aoratos – Gods Without Name
Band: Aoratos
Title: Gods Without Name
Label: Debemur Morti Productions
Release Date: March 22nd, 2019
Country: The United States
Format reviewed: FLAC
For musicians it is normal to have multiple projects and of course, you don’t expect to hear masterpieces from every single one, but Naas Alcameth wanted to rise above and prove us it is possible, by constantly putting out some of the best black metal in the modern era under three main names: Akhlys, Bestia Arcana and Nightbringer. With each of these bands, Naas tackles a different sound and ideas: Akhlys portrays a tenebrous oneiric universe, Bestia Arcana is a straight up occult sermon, with very interesting vocals and Nightbringer has a grandiose black metal sound, but delivered with a rarely seen ferocity. To all this, Naas decided to add one more project, to yet again prove his talent: enter Aoratos.
The band’s name comes from Greek and means “invisible”, or “never seen before”. It fits quite well considering the fact that the theme of the band is the “genius loci” which is a Roman term for “spirit of the place”. This spirit takes many forms across many folk tales from around the world and can haunt different places, be them urban, rural or just nature. In “Gods Without Name”, I think the spirit took the form of a demonic spectre, because the music is down-right frightening.
In an effort to describe the group’s sound, I could say that it feels a bit like the bastard child of Akhlys and Nightbringer: it combines the dark atmosphere of Akhlys with the unhuman drumming and apocalyptic sound of Nightbringer, however, I’m not doing Aoratos justice, as it’s an entity of it’s own. The music is simply terrifying. The high pitched tremolo riffs are anxiety inducing, the drumming sets an impenetrable wall of sound, Naas’s vocals conjure demons from the lowest depth’s of Damnation and the dark ambient elements only add to the tormenting atmosphere, all of them creating an perplexing result. The guitar lines are especially stunning, in their ghastly way, as each guitar plays a different line almost at all times and so the songs become so layered that multiple listens are a must. If I pick any song, even the intro and outro, I get a sense that something is not right at all, like a shape with angles that defy the laws of geometry, angles that have no place in the natural world, something that would be able to drive you insane if you laid eyes on it and even though you realise these things, your gaze remains locked on the strange object as you spiral hopelessly into a Pandemonium of madness, frozen in place, but mind screaming.
Songs like “Thresher” or“Holy Mother of Terror” are a perfect summary to understand what the release is about, but they won’t be enough to understand the huge abyssal monolith that is “Gods Without Name”. Even though the tracks don’t differ an awful lot from each other, listening to the album never felt like a chore. Only the last song before the outro, “Dread Spirit of the Place” , has a pace change because it has some heavy doom elements, so it really stands out from the rest of the songs.
Again, “Gods Without Name” is different. It’s black metal, without a doubt, and the elements are familiar, but Naas manages to twist them and combine them in such a way that it will feel like uncharted teritory, full of dark corners that shelter surprises of the utmost vile nature. 8.5/10 Metal Gentleman
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