Aludra "Mass Stellar Graves"

    Aludra’s new album, “Mass Stellar Graves,” is a raw sounding black metal journey into pure and unforgiving atmospheric sounding entropy. Just imagine being sucked through a black hole where you cannot escape and drift endlessly through darkness for all eternity.

    The Oklahoma based black metal duo constructs abysmal sounding raw pieces of music and explores lyrical themes relating to space. “Mass Stellar Graves,” is definitely an album written to hook the listener from beginning to end with its unique concepts. The overall atmosphere throughout the album is raw and grim, perfect for dealing with topics concerning destructive cosmic forces. The drums create a very bleak sounding rhythmic backbone while the guitars wash over with melancholy chord progressions. As much as I feel like this formula is very repetitious in black metal, Aludra is able to executed it to where you are drawn into he calming chaos of blackened stellar wonder.

    Opening the album is the song, “Imprisoning Light,” which happens to be a suitable name for a song containing some harsh sounding instrumental compositions. The singer’s vocal delivery compliments the musical landscape with cries of anguish and despair. Black metal vocals can sometimes be a bit gimmicky if the instrumental structures are not very interesting, however, I think Aludra is able to make everything work together in a solid fashion. “Coma B,” is another example where the song’s atmosphere is able to break away from the typical black metal style.

    Track number three, “Sagittarius A,” takes listeners on a tormenting ride through hellish sounding arrangements of extreme chaos. I felt like the vocals were the main area of emphasis, while the instrumental compositions provide a frantic and unorthodox sounding musical backbone. “Out of Chaos,” is more of a traditional style black metal song with more of a slow frost bitten sounding delivery. Tracks five and six, “Black Void Damnation” and “Mass Stellar Graves” continue to push forward in unforgiving and chaotic directions of pure extreme prowess.

    Overall, the album is a solid effort and attempts to explore the extreme concepts of black holes and voids of endless damnation. I feel like on future efforts Aludra should continue to explore their interest in the cosmos, while also not falling into those repetitive and gimmicky black metal songwriting traps. Make the music standout and have a unique presentation instead of writing the same recycled riff while you continuously sing about worshipping Satan.

    If you want a solid release that creates grim sounding atmospheres full of raw black metal attitude, then I recommend this release.




Check out the album below:

Aludra Bandcamp:
https://aludrabm.bandcamp.com/

Aludra Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Aludra-19659...