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The Aura is the debut studio album from Canadian Progressive/Technical Death Metal band Beyond Creation. The album was released in 2011. When listening to The Aura I can’t help but draw big comparisons to German band Obscura, as Beyond Creation utilize an almost identical sound, right down to the tone of the growls of frontman Simon Girard and the use of fretless bass curtsey of former Augury bassist Dominic "Forest" Lapointe. The most notable difference between the two bands is Beyond Creation forgo use of clean vocals, sticking to a varied growling style that ranges from deep tones to shrikes.
This album is a showcase of how I enjoy the death metal genre the most. Extreme, but with much thought put into the compositions and a lot of technical skill on offer from the band members. The fretless bass work is very prominent in the sound and I like that a lot. The bass is one instrument that I often find gets lost in the overall sound in a metal band, and I struggle to find bassists that are really noteworthy enough for me to consider as really good, with too many bassists just following the guitar. Here though the bass is off doing its own thing and that’s just great when combined with the heavy riffs of guitarists Simon Girard and Kévin Chartré, and even better when they start throwing out the technical stuff. The bass doesn’t completely make this album, but it would be a lot more bog-standard affair without Dominic "Forest" Lapointe’s skills.
The song writing is generally solid, but there are only a few tracks among the albums number that strike me as a cut above the rest, such as its title track, along with Omnipresent Perception and the eleven minute closer, The Deported. There’s a consistent level of solid stuff here though, with no dud tracks. Hopefully it’s the sound of better things to come. Still I’m very impressed with this debut effort, and look forward to hearing what these guys can come up with next.
In summary it’s a safe bet that if you’re a fan of Obscura or bands like them, you’re also going to enjoy Beyond Creation. At first it may seem that Byond Creation is a direct copy of said band though, which may put some listeners off, although once you delve into the album and give it several listens there are some differences between the two bands, enough to tell them apart at least. Beyond Creation is less progressive than Obscura and doesn’t use clean vocals, and the production sounds a little less polished to my ears.
The Aura is an impressive first effort and is worthy of a very praiseworthy score. It may have many similarities to the established Obscura, who as the established band are, at the moment at least, the better act, but The Aura shows that in time, Beyond Creation could well be giving them a run for their money as far as progressive/technical death metal with layers of fretless bass work goes. A highly recommended album!
(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven, scoring 8.7/10)