{"id":35579,"date":"2015-09-17T09:00:12","date_gmt":"2015-09-17T14:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toiletovhell.com\/?p=35579"},"modified":"2015-09-17T09:21:40","modified_gmt":"2015-09-17T14:21:40","slug":"tech-death-thursday-the-ritual-aura","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/tech-death-thursday-the-ritual-aura\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech Death Thursday: The Ritual Aura"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>It&#8217;s Tech Death Thursday: music by robots, for robots.\u00a0<strong>The Ritual Aura<\/strong> are here in all their face-flaying glory.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>But first we&#8217;ve got news from other, lesser bands:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Gorod<\/strong> (wait, did I say lesser?) have released the second track from\u00a0<em>A Maze of Recycled Creeds<\/em>, reminding us once again that they music way harder than most musicians music. Check out &#8220;Temple to the Art God&#8221; right <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aOyYavhaDmc&amp;index=1&amp;list=FL-6umqcTBkl9IH4Z8Z-O1jg\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>The title track from\u00a0<strong>Contrarian&#8217;s<\/strong>\u00a0upcoming debut,\u00a0<em>Polemic<\/em>, is streaming at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nocleansinging.com\/2015\/09\/15\/an-ncs-premiere-contrarian-polemic\/\" target=\"_blank\">NCS<\/a>. The cover art, featuring what appears to be a giant space-wizard marlin locked in mortal combat with a fleet of superfluously pointy starships, is not terribly representative of the music. Expect more prog than tech.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Lost Soul<\/strong> are making a mad dash for my tech death AotY with <i>Atlantis: The New Beginning<\/i>. I might be jumping the gun a bit, but if the rest of the album is as tight as\u00a0&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Ri9YE345g2s&amp;app=desktop\" target=\"_blank\">Aqueous Ammonia<\/a>,&#8221; then they might just take it. Look for the full album October 30th.<\/li>\n<li>If you don&#8217;t mind a little core with your death,\u00a0<strong>Eradikal Insane<\/strong>\u00a0have a new album you&#8217;ll want to check out ASAP.\u00a0Stream\u00a0<em>Mithra<\/em> in full at their <a href=\"https:\/\/eradikalinsane.bandcamp.com\/album\/mithra\" target=\"_blank\">Bandcamp<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Roses are red, violets are blue, tech death is purple, and djent is, uh, <a href=\"https:\/\/grofbol.bandcamp.com\/releases\" target=\"_blank\">green<\/a>. Fuck. If you&#8217;re feeling some groovy, djenty death metal, then give a listen to\u00a0<strong>Grofb\u00f3l&#8217;s<\/strong> newest,\u00a0<em>Human Impermanence<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Brutal tech death outfit<strong> Serial Butcher<\/strong> bring both the chugs and the shreds on their latest album,\u00a0<em>Brute Force Lobotomy<\/em>. Stream it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.metalunderground.com\/news\/details.cfm?newsid=116570\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>\u00a0ahead of its Friday release.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Shattered<\/strong>, whom I have been waiting to write about forever, have apparently stealthily released their debut album,\u00a0<em>New Atlantis<\/em>. It can apparently be purchased directly from them by contacting them on Facebook. I don&#8217;t know why they&#8217;ve opted to do this, but at least it&#8217;s out. Check out &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=n3e8dGCfI08\" target=\"_blank\">Ignite the Dawnshard<\/a>,&#8221; &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WDwQRtTnxyk\" target=\"_blank\">Despise the Living<\/a>,&#8221; and &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aw6re7f5UPM\" target=\"_blank\">Bipolar Disorder<\/a>&#8221; for some solid Christian M\u00fcnzner worship.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ouroboros<\/strong> have finally announced a release date for their newest album.\u00a0<em>Emanations<\/em>\u00a0is coming on October 6th. Take a listen to their now almost year-old lead single right <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=5AzZkyYvFOI\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>\u00a0and get re-hyped.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"400\" height=\"100\" src=\"http:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/v=2\/album=2890886055\/size=venti\/bgcol=FFFFFF\/linkcol=4285BB\/\" style=\"position:relative;display:block;width:400px;height:100px;\" allowtransparency=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div align=\"center\"><\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;m going to say this straight up: some of you are going to hate this. You&#8217;re going to hit play on that stream, make it about ten seconds in, and smash your speakers. The production on <em>Laniakea<\/em>\u00a0is extremely clean; very triggered, very quantized, heavily noise gated. From a tonal standpoint, it&#8217;s not unlike what you&#8217;d hear from\u00a0<strong>Archspire<\/strong> or\u00a0<strong>Rings of Saturn<\/strong>. I know about half of you rage-puked on your screens just from reading that, but hey: this is tech death. It comes with the territory.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the flip side to this is that every note is crisp and clear amidst what might have otherwise been a mess. The guitars are clearly the focal point and driving force of each song, but they don&#8217;t bury anything else in the mix. Even the bass cuts through like a razor.<\/p>\n<p>Now, for the five or six of you who are still with me, The Ritual Aura have a hell of an album for us.\u00a0<em>Laniakea<\/em> hits that sweet spot between melody and shred, striking a perfect balance between the two. Nothing on the album sounds like it was done just because they could do it; even when the guitars are pouring forth a flurry of harmonized tapping licks, it&#8217;s done in such a way that those notes still feel like they mean something. The songs exude a sense of danger and discovery, and as a whole, the album feels like a grand expedition into the depths of space. The only personal complaint I would level against this album is that the vocalist doesn&#8217;t sing enough. The moments where he uses clean vocals always stand out, but they pass far too quickly. That&#8217;s just a minor nitpick, though, and it doesn&#8217;t bring down the experience at all.<\/p>\n<p><em>Laniakea<\/em> surely isn&#8217;t going to be for everyone, but I don&#8217;t imagine any tech heads would want to pass this one up. Fans of\u00a0<strong>Decrepit Birth<\/strong> and, to a lesser extent,\u00a0<strong>Fallujah<\/strong> should find a lot to like here. The full stream is available at either <a href=\"https:\/\/theritualaura.bandcamp.com\/album\/laniakea\" target=\"_blank\">The Ritual Aura<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/laceratedenemyrecords.bandcamp.com\/album\/the-ritual-aura-laniakea\" target=\"_blank\">Lacerated Enemy<\/a>&#8216;s Bandcamp pages.<\/p>\n<p>Until next time,<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=u2utPT_0PGM\" target=\"_blank\">Stay Tech<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>(Image <a href=\"https:\/\/laceratedenemyrecords.bandcamp.com\/album\/the-ritual-aura-laniakea\" target=\"_blank\">VIA<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s Tech Death Thursday: music by robots, for robots.\u00a0The Ritual Aura are here in all their face-flaying glory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":35591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[640],"tags":[5154,5155,1224,5156,1608,622,5157,4008,2922],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/The-Ritual-Aura.jpg?fit=700%2C500&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35579"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}