Aura Noir - Dreams Like Deserts EP (1995)

Dreams Like Deserts came along at a critical point when the whole blackened thrash/speed amalgam was a bit of a novelty; by no means was this some reimagining of the formula, but other than the obvious forebears like Bathory, Venom, Slayer and Possessed, or the earliest works of the German trio of Sodom, Kreator and Destruction, this was not the most popular route for most lingering thrash acts in the 90s to follow. The Scandinavian scene, however, did not get that memo, and so you had acts like Swordmaster, Gehenna, Bewitched, Aura Noir, and the evolving Impaled Nazarene around to spearhead this sort of retro- evolutionary backwashed vitriol, themselves sort of split between the influences of black, death, thrash or speed in differing proportions, but all offering this sort of 'slick', leather-harnessed back alley to the more intense, extremity that was taking over the pure black and death metal genres at the time.

This early Aura Noir recording was among the earlier works of Aggressor and Apollyon, two musicians who would go on to a lot of projects, including Aggressor's similar Infernö which would take off at around the same time in a more decidedly speed/thrash configuration with more of a punk foundation. And here you've got what sounds to me like pretty basic larval Teutonic thrash with the sinister vocals, for fans of In the Sign of Evil and Endless Pain, with some perhaps more pronounced black metal rasps that would keep them current with their Norse and Swedish peers of the time. But the riff structures here seem like they leap forth from the inspiration of "Riot of Violence' or "Total Desaster", not so much of the driven, supremely sinister Slayer in terms of riffing strength or diabolic harmonies, but rough and tumble with frilly licks and tin-can crashing drums that give it a real street vibe, knuckle-dusting the listener into some heaps of offal and refuse in some dimly lit pile of garbage bags.

To that extent, it's got a cool primacy to it that would set up the framework for their first two full lengths. The hellish energy is legit, although I don't think I ever found the riffs themselves to be as resilient or memorable as those they'd write later on. In fact, in today's saturated scene of blackened speedsters, Dreams Like Deserts would seem rather average, but it was in fact well ahead of the trend that would follow, and the few atmospheric moments it has like the intro to "The Rape" with its bass grooves reminiscent of Voivod, or the thundering bridge of "Forlorn Blessings to the Dreamking" do help to distinguish it slightly from being too generic. A fiery start, though this is admittedly the Aura Noir recording I return to the least whenever I'm seeking my fix, with some of its influences a little too much on its razored-up sleeves, like having a song titled "Angel Ripper".

Verdict: Win [7/10]

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