It’s taken eight years for Empire Auriga to follow up their debut album “Auriga Dying”. Listening to “Ascending the Solar Throne”, I can only imagine that the band spent the intervening time staring wistfully into voids.
Metal blizzards swirl around. In the gloom and melancholic air there is a lofty ring. “Prophetic Light” just needs some snow, I thought. The metallic mood becomes grimmer and grimmer. Distorted screams enter but do not dominate “Jubilee Warlord”. There are swathes of sadness but it’s not overwhelming because the ambiance is industrial and too metallic to draw in too many human emotions. “The Solar Throne” sounds as if someone is having a bad day at the saw mill. The bleak, grey and harsh obscurity continues. This needs crashing buildings, but there are no buildings in the cosmos. Yet again it’s too metallic to be sad. “Are You Worthy of Gold?” now has an aura of Burzum in its penetratingly monolithic gloom and menace, but this is more monotonous. “The Foundation of All Human Fears” then features dark and indistinct mutterings in an industrial framework. A distant voice can be heard as “The Last Passage of Azon Grul” begins. This final track has more character than the others. The chords are evocative. There are sounds of helplessness. Echoing voices come from a chasm. Patient majesty brings this album to a close. “The Last Passage of Azon Grul” is atmospheric and epic.
This album as a whole is atmospheric and bleak, but as it rumbles round interminable voids, it rarely branches out to discover majestic heights. It seems that if any such heights were found, it would defeat the whole object. “Ascending the Solar Throne” is interesting but never overpowering.
(7/10 Andrew Doherty)
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