THE AURORA VEIL

"The Aurora Veil" is a selftitled demo EP/album by Melbourne based Australian progressive extreme metal act Ne Obliviscaris. The band is a sextet which includes two vocalists (one of them also plays violin), two guitarists, one bass player and a drummer.

The music is very interesting with both melodic tech death metal parts and more experimental metal parts. The two vocalists bring great variation to the music. The growling/screaming vocals by Xenoyr are powerful and convincing while I´m having a hard time enjoying the clean vocals by vocalist/ violinist Tim Charles. His vocal are not very strong. It´s probably an aquired taste though. One of the features I noticed right away listening to the music is the brutal and varied drumming by Daniel Presland. Lots of double pedal and and other powerful tricks to keep the music interesting. He is a very skilled drummer. Another dominant feature in the music is the violin by Tim Charles. His skills on a violin are considerable and keeping in mind his not so strong vocals he should probably stick to playing his instrument. I´m really impressed by his violin parts.

The production is very good. Better than many official albums from other artists.

If this band haven´t been offered a record contract yet, there´s no justice in this world. They are such a talented and unique band and I can´t wait to hear a real studio album from them. Unfortunately the clean vocals by Tim Charles drag my rating down a bit and I really hope he will stop singing and concentrate on his fantastic violin playing which I think is one of the most important and defining features in Ne Obliviscaris music. Without the clean vocals I would have given "The Aurora Veil" 4 stars but as it is now I´ll hand out a 3.5 star rating.