If you missed the “While The Rest Of the World Sleep...” 2008 release by FunerART Records; you still have a chance to get your hands on this second album by Aura Hiemis as it just has been re-released by Endless Winter with a complete re-thought artwork and packaging and a slightly different tracklist. The presentation is really ambitious: the digipack is twice as long as a normal jewelcase for the same width!!. If you like naked women imprison in serpentine tree branches and if you can stand an overwhelming photoshopy touch, you’ll love it!
You all know how melodic Death Doom is a waymarked genre; hard to come up with something original with so worn-out tools. The vast majority of bands that have made them a nest in this niche can be put one behind another and nothing would stick out. You can describe them all with the the same old references.
Aura Hiemis is a one-man band hailing from Chile; Herumor V is also active in Mar de Grises. And you can hear there’s something that stands out here. Frankly, this is barely explainable; it’s something in the tone and some sort of epicness that give me that feeling. The languid guitar lines expand with majesty, they are hold during a long time in every song, but never sound to drag in a boring way. Between melancholy and despair, there’s a vast room let for an aural temple to settle. The voice is quite versatile also, Herumor V explores the dark ressources of his vocal abilities: whisper, raspy growls, black-ish shrieks, sensitive wailing clean chants; you’ll even have ethereal female voice entwined in some songs.
That big temple that Aura Hiemis builts is essentialy made of long languid and somber guitar leads that underlie the compositions; they really knock you down, cover you with a heavy shroud, making you numb. It’s the strong frame of the bands’ instrumentation. The songs flow in one another fluently, giving the impression of being part of the same strong architecture. Those leads are most often enhanced by simplistic riffs that hammer their Doom with perseverance while you hardly notice the keyboards which bring even more depth and lightness to the music. There’s even a passage made from exracts of the american broadcast that, together with the Doom section, conveys a suprising intensity!
Aura Hiemis stand above average. Under the analysis, you only perceive some simple songwriting, some expurgated skills, but the fact is undeniable: something strong is operating. “While The Rest Of the World Sleep...” (sic) is a very good Death Doom album that should find its place in your collection between Mar De Grises/ “The Tatterdemalion Express” and Lethargia/ “The kingdom Of Unrealizable Hopes”.
Doom-metal.com Jul. 2010
released March 25, 2010