Over the last few years, death metal has been steadily invaded by speed metal and late hardcore just like black metal because these genres are easy to produce so everyone can participate, but Aurora Borealis pushes back against this trend with an album full of roaring old-school riffs and speed thrills.

There are moments of course of bouncy riffs, but the pure looped-and-layered style of rhythmic speed metal is gone, replaced by melodic nodes in charging chromatic riffs and structured dialogue between riffs to make each song.

Unlike anything else recently, this is a futurist tribute to death metal, a clarion call for it to move forward by being what it always was instead of strictly trying to imitate the past or make a false future from outside influences. Instead pure darkness unfolds into infinite light.

Tags: aurora borealis, death metal