Aonarach – 1

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AONARACH is the brainchild of Tom Perrett, the man behind Scottish Atmopspheric Black Metal project RUADH. Designed to be darker and colder, it boasts a more Black Metal outing. Viceral and unforgiving in parts but open and cold in others. AONARACH means isolation or loneliness. This is his debut album and contains four tracks.

“The River” opens the album…eight-minutes in length. Rain falls slowly, then the darkness comes. Drums gallop over a low and fast picked riff, and the vocals are near guttural at first. It takes an ambient pause around the half-way mark, with the riff backing off the fast picking and just dropping heavy accents. The rain returns at the end. “Ghosts” is a ten-minute opus, beginning with a faster pace. The drums reverberate in your ears and the riff is moving quickly. The screams become anguished before too long, as the riff ventures out a bit. It takes a pause at the half-way mark, for some really charming but sad melodies to develop, then the riff carries that melody forward. It ends with some light rain and that clean melody again.

“The Ritual” begins with a more powerful, straightforward sound. That riff could crush mountains. An uncharacteristic guitar solo rears its head, then the song rolls on. “Solitude” closes the album, opening with a slow and depressing sound. The ambient pause around the half-way mark is again beautiful. The sound drops to just some clean guitars towards the end, ringing out the solitude with passion and emotion. Overall, I found the sound to be quite isolating and lonely. The music picked up those themes quite well. Even during the darkest and harshest of passages, and through the clean, ambient melodies, that feeling never leaves you. Hauntingly beautiful, there is something for all fans of Atmospheric Black Metal to love here.

Songwriting: 9
Musicianship: 8
Memorability: 8
Production: 8