Nox Aurea – Ascending in Triumph (2010)

Playing Gothic Doom Metal, today we have Nox Aurea a brilliant band from Sweden that will give Draconian a run for it’s money. The band’s second full-length “Ascending in Triumph” provides us with 8 melancholic tracks that will surely keep us entertained until the next Draconian album.

Playing a genre that is not very popular these days, Nox Aurea create the perfect Gothic Doom atmosphere with their low-tuned guitars, majestic keyboards, and brilliantly crafted ‘beauty and the beast’-type vocals. We are huge fans of Gothic Doom Metal and Nox Aurea have catered to every one of our quirky needs since their debut “Via Gnosis”, and will “Ascending in Triumph” the band takes their abilities to a whole new level of greatness.

With a very similar sound than Draconian, Nox Aurea manages to distant themselves from other bands in the genre by shifting their focus of their lyrics from the traditional gothic romanticism to Gnostic subjects. While this will make exactly no difference if you only listen to the music, but if you pay attention to what the vocalist are singing you will start to notice the different ideas Nox Aurea has.

The band’s music has the traditional foundations of the genre, and focusing on slow and crushing guitar riffs, the band lays a very thick foundation. The drumming is very well crafted and never takes control of the music. What creates the band’s Gothic atmosphere is the brilliant keyboard arrangements that help create the epic and helpless feeling that the genre requires. Three of the band members provide their talents behind composing the keyboards, so you know there is quite a variety of sounds and arrangements.

The male vocal duties are also shared between band members and this produces a nice combination of growls, screams, clean spoken sections, and even some almost Black Metal like shrieks. We enjoy the vocal diversity that the band provides and takes out some of the monotony that the genre sometimes features. The female vocals of Alice Persell are top notch and provide a nice fragile-sounding contrast to the harsh vocals. Her vocals sound like a combination of Liv Kristine with Lisa Johansson (Draconian) we love the natural feeling to them, a huge difference from Gothic Metal bands that rely too much on classically trained female vocals.

Overall, we think is great that bands are still keeping the Gothic Doom Metal flame alive, and Nox Aurea offers great quality music in this regard. The band does a great job at capturing the emotions behind this musical genre. If you are looking for something similar to Draconian, etc, look no further and get “Ascending in Triumph”.

Release: July 13th, 2010

Country: Sweden