BRILLANT. BRILLANT. BRILLANT. I only can think of this adjective when I think of “The Aurora Project”. I loved them STRAIGHT AWAY. It’s always a GREAT pleasure to discover a new band that expresses its INDIVIDUALITY through its own style. Everything of “Unspoken Words” makes the album unique: music, vocals, arrangements, concept, type of lyrics, everything. Even the presence of a gothic choir in “The Resurrection” song !!
Dennis Binnekade (singer), Remco van den Berg (guitar, backing vocals), Marc Vooys (rhythm guitar), Rob Krijgsman (bass), Joris Bol (drums) and Marcel Guyt (synthesizers) are part of this Dutch band. “Unspoken Words” (great 63 minutes-conceptual album about a spiritual quest) is a mix of progressive rock and metal and is the first CD released by the band. Obviously, it won’t be the last !!! You’ll understand why if ever you get the CD in hands. It’s a really HIGH QUALITY album, both on music complexity and sound quality aspects. The album consists of many different parts: there are songs that are only instrumental, other are spoken ones, while most of them are music and vocals. There is just a perfect balance between each of them. I wasn’t crazy for the “spoken parts” but the VOCALS in songs are astonishing and absolutely UNIQUE. Very clear, pure, never too strong nor too weak. Just perfect. As for musicians, they are all as excellent as each other.
Usually, we can find many similarities with other bands in the music style, but in this case, for once, apart from the spoken parts (which reminded me a little of Ayreon’s style sometimes), I really can’t compare the music nor vocals to other bands. Surely it has been influenced a bit by bands like “Pink Floyd”, “Ayreon” (for the STYLE of album), “Riverside”, “Tool” and maybe I’d even say “Pagan’s Mind” ??? (to a very little extent).
But even then, “The Aurora Project” is totally unique on every aspect.
They have that special touch to make musical arrangements in SUCH a beautiful, smart and brilliant way. You can feel they are perfectionists.
Best tracks: “The Resurrection” (very complex song and musically STRONG !!), “The Betrayal”, “The Untold Prophecy” and “The Event Horizon” (but all of them have that “something” special). AWESOME. AWESOME. AWESOME.
You’ll be blown away, I swear ! Musicians do a Hell of a job and the vocalist as well. In three words, “The Aurora Project” is: UNIQUENESS. ORIGINALITY. QUALITY.
The guys are truly prodigious !!! I only can rate this album 10/10 !!!
For sure, I’ll never get bored to listen to “Unspoken Words”: it’s 63 delightful minutes for the hearing. Even though it was released some years ago, I think it's the greatest and most interesting music discovery I've made THIS year. :-) Run and buy it !!!!
Reviewed by Vikie Martel on May 31st, 2008
