UNSPOKEN WORDS

If you was looking for a new Progressive combo, something beautiful a bit atmospheric and with above all a really touching music, I think that you should have a look one of the revelations of the years 2005 that comes from The Netherlands, The Aurora Project. Intelligent and not so common the music of ".Unspoken Words" will probably stay in the heads of the ones, who like me, enjoy Progressive music. Don't miss it.

Firstly, you must know that ".Unspoken Words" is a concept album. The main theme is simple, the band wanted to describe a spiritual journey. The concept album Unspoken Words describes a spiritual journey, based on an essay by their guitarist Marc, the predominant question of this project turns around the statement "I feel, so I exist". As you can see, all that is a bit philosophic and actually you will see that we have this influence on the music itself.

The guys say that they find their influences with the music of some bands like Pink Floyd, Porcupine Tree, Anathema and even Tool. That's right, it's easy to find in the music of The Aurora Project this really atmospheric, insistent and depressive music that we can find with an Anathema or a Porcupine Tree and that's the same with Pink Floyd and the long progressive and complex guitars lines. But don't believe that the others instruments are marginal, the Bass is more than present the Drummer use to play complex rhythm and the samples and different ambiances of the keyboards are really interesting. At the end the music of The Aurora Project is maybe really calm and can sound Rock or even Pop sometime but believe me, it's always beautiful and will touch you if you're a real aficionados of Progressive music.

At the end, we have a lot of efforts on this release. With guest appearances, a real choir and even a storyteller who talk between some songs (the famous SD 9796.823. of the track-list) the production of the album is really good. You could find a lot of features like multimedia stuff and you must know that the album was mastered by Sander Van Der Heide who worked in the past with Within Temptation.

So, I suppose that you understand that you cannot miss this release especially if you like Progressive "stuff". For a first album this is a great start and I'm sure that we will see some great thing with this band in the future. ".Unspoken Words" is one of the best surprises of the years 2005 when it come to talk about Progressive Metal.

Review by Jeff Meddle