Empire Auriga - Ascending the Solar Throne (2014)

Much like its predecessor Auriga Dying, Ascending the Solar Throne functions far more effectively as an ambient/industrial piece than a metal one; no doubt what the Michigan duo had intended, and yet still clinging to its black metal inspiration in the use of ungodly snarled vocals and walls of heavily effected tremolo picked guitars, or raw, droning chords that take inspiration from the more suicidal, depressive black metal sources. I suppose Empire Auriga belong in the same sphere as acts like I Shalt Become or Austria's Summoning, only the thematic geography of is a long way from the former's varied-by-album concepts and the latter's Middle Earth fixation. Instead, the duo inhabits a sort of metaphysical/cosmic environment in theory, but the music felt a lot to me the ruins of burnt out, blasted industrial cities on distant world where the hostile, native environments have reclaimed the technological defiance of advanced human civilizations... Radiated memories, floating through the now-empty shells like phantoms while fields of radars still reach to neighboring worlds in hopes of a signal...anything.

Sounds pretty cool, right? If you can subordinate yourself to its sense of escapism and sense of 'background' aesthetics to a bright nightmare, then this is certainly an improvement over their debut, but it does still lack somewhat in the personality department. Walls of distorted, heavily affected guitar are used as an atmospheric cloak to the clunking, minimal sense of percussion, as opposed to the riff-centric structures we associate with most black (or other) metal acts. The vocals range from distorted black metal rasps to more wailing, edge-of-perception haunted tones that seem to blend right into the blinding, fiery ambiance of the guitars. There is no tenable bass element to the music beyond some of the deeper drums occasionally resonating off into this or that speaker, but this is not really the sort of style that would benefit from it. No, tunes like "Jubilee Warlord" and "Are You Worthy of Gold?" feel more like you've just awakened from a cryogenic sleep in a post-apocalyptic survival capsule buried on the edge of a desert, and you nearly lose your sense of sight once the airlock doors open and you behold the fiendish radiance of the sun-stroked wastes...

And then "Waste" takes the sense of foreboding even further: dissonant, raw-as-fuck filtered chords giving the impression that this nuclear wanderer is being stocked by mutant scorpions who have yet to finish proving to mankind who is the new king of the food chain. I kept thinking of the film version of Zelazny's Damnation Alley when I listened through this disc, or Fallout 3, rather than the fields of colliding asteroids and glimmering celestial bodies the band might have intended, but I guess you also do get a small whiff of interstellar radio noise being broadcast through the uncaring void. At any rate, if any of the imagery I've painted in this critique tickles your curiosity, and you'd rather have such music crafted in an uncomfortable, repulsive means rather than that of melodious warmth and harmony, then Ascending the Solar Throne is probably worth the time. It's not too heavily industrial, more reliant on the stinging static of its guitar effects than on beats, so just expect something a little more loosely defined, which leaves plenty of terror for your imagination to fill in, rather than incessantly guiding your hand through a standard pop or rock song structure. I have a feeling there is better yet to hear from this pairing, but the sophomore is undoubtedly more effective and troubling than its predecessor and consistently caustic.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10]

Empire Auriga - Auriga Dying (2006)

Empire Auriga is yet another example in how black metal is being triumphantly bridged into external mediums of sound, or rather; how the core, lo-fi aesthetics of the genre are adapted to a spacious, martial industrial landscape. If you could picture a middle ground between Triarii and Summoning, then you will be well prepared for the sounds of this Michigan outfit. Bleak repetition, banks of distorted guitars, a mix of rasped and chanted vocals, and monolithic industrial drum programming that feels like a labyrinth of gears and pipes churning out the repressed ambitions of a generations lost to the vastness of civilization and space.

There is a variation of intensity through several of the tracks. Where "Time Expanded" provides but a steady march through sirens, resonant raw guitar tones and distant horns, the more extensive "Sorrowsong" cycles from cavernous electronic noises to massive swelters of sad guitar melodies and oppressive vocals that are barely audible as they hiss against the infernal clanking of the percussion. "Dreaming of Breath and Stars" is a dour anthem for the downtrodden, with more of the mystical, distant guitars ringing off against the central tumult of despair; while shorter tracks like "The Lurker" writhe with the dissonance of speech samples, or the walls of guitar ambiance that characterize "Soul Interrupt". But perhaps my favorite track on the entire effort is the closer, "Dust and Ether", which is a simple, escalating dark ambient track that escalates through a central pier of dense noise, harried by light synths and distant howls and samples.

As interesting as I found Empire Auriga's atmosphere, I do feel like the material is not quite so hypnotic as I might have hoped. Certainly it's interesting, intelligent and has a firm grasp of its minimal nature, but there was a fraction more monotony than I desired, and where groups like Svarte Keiner, Karjalan Sissit, or Megaptera complete suck me into their compositions, I felt a few moments where I was looking at my watch, wondering if something more interesting would occur. This isn't the case so much for the longer pieces ("Dust and Ether", "Sorrowsong") but for those in between, which don't seem to bear the same massive vision. That said, this is only the first recording, and the fundamentals for something enormous are being laid here that might one day thrill fans of the visceral, dark black/ambient and industrial suggestion of obscure artists like I Shalt Become, etc. which are simply more revelatory at this point.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

http://www.myspace.com/empireauriga