Auroris - "Outpost" Review

Artist/ Band: Auroris
Title: Outpost
Label: Self release
Year of Release: 2008
Offical Artist/ Band Link

The Review:

After 5 years, Tony “Auroris” Rudd & reconnected at Facebook. We sent email messages back and forth early in 2011, which is how I found out there were two cds released since I reviewed back in 2006. One of those cds was Outpost, which released in 2008. Just like the previous albums, Antony plays all the instruments including guitar, bass, keyboards and drum programming. On the Auroris website, Tony says the music on Outpost is “getting a wee darker”. I also noticed there’s a slight metallic presence too.

On Outpost, the song lengths are between 1 to slightly over 9 minutes, the short track is “Proton Entity” (1:20) and the longest is “Dark Quarters” (9:15). The remainder of the tracks are approximately 4 to 8 minutes. One of the tracks that stood out to me was “Martian Soul Scan” (4:36). It’s primarily a modern metal song with some ambient and symphonic moments. In my opinion, this song could easily be compared to the output on Arjen Lucassen’s Star One band.

After several listens to this album, I find myself gravitating towards “Dark Quarters” (9:15). Not so much the length but more the content. There’s a serious space/symphonic rock vibe happening on that track. I for one wouldn’t mind more songs like that, in different variations.

Overall, if you’re into instrumental space/symphonic progressive/rock then you should investigate Outpost ASAP! The one thing that keeps this from being a perfect album, is the programmed drums. In some instances it sounds fine but for the most part I feel a real drummer would make this and future albums a edge above most instrumental bands.

Reviewed by Ron Fuchs on April 26th, 2011

Tracks:

01. Terraformer

02. Martian Soul Scan

03. Dark Quarters

04. Jettison

05. Cryogenesis 2

06. Proton Entity

07. Pulse Drive

08. Rescue Ship

09. Transmission

Reviewed Discography

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