Aurum Solis is a new outfit by Siberian born Sergey ‘Thanataur’ Andrievskikh, part of e.g. Tahatoc or Eisflammen, and the guy behind projects such as Without Dreams, HexenHammer’s Flame (the review for Ad Fines Nivis Aeternae, by the way, was published on this site’s upload of February 14th 2016 by undersigned) or Психоз 4.48. With рожденне Солнца, aka Rozhdeniye Solntsa, he created a first album under the autumnal Aurum Solis moniker, and this piece, which has a total running time of forty-four minutes (the four compositions last in between eight and thirteen minutes), got released by one of the many excellent Russian (Doom) labels, Frozen Light. The recording was actually created in 2014, but the official release via Frozen Light will give this project the opportunity to reach a bigger audience.
With рожденне Солнца Aurum Solis bring quite a traditional and elementary form of timeless Old School Doom-Death Metal, the atmospheric-symphonic direction. At the one hand, you have the ultra-heavy riffs and rhythms, the deep-throated grunts, and the forceful interplay in between a pounding rhythm section and melodious riffing; at the other, Aurum Solis come up with quite some (predictable?) additions, such as whispers, piano, synth melodies, flutes, you know, those elements that aren’t stranger to the whole experience. The overload on keyboards might, I guess, be ‘too much’ from time to time. I think it’s the hyper-melodious quasi-catchiness that acts as a turn-off, the atmosphere that turns out to be quite ‘light’ instead of ‘dark’ (goody-goodness overpowering depressing of melancholic heaviness). Sometimes those parts turn over towards ambiental passages of dream-spheres, and that’s quite all right; but then again some excerpts reach a level of semi-pathetic tenderness, and that’s nothing but regrettable.
You know, normally I do not mind about that futile need to be distinctive, that lack of originality; if the qualitative result is above the average, then I am in a good mood. This time, however, I am left unsatisfied. рожденне Солнца has quite some good ideas, and believe me if I say that everything has been done with eye for detail and persuasion; I’m afraid that there are quite some more ‘attractive’ alternatives dwelling around lately from Soviet soil, but for sure there is no reason not to give this a try either. Conclusion: there’s too much joy spoiling the inherent unhappiness that this scene needs / deserves…