Aara is a Swiss-based black metal trio with a penchant for combining the majestic and unsettling into epic tracks like “Arkanum” off their upcoming release En Ergô Einai (Debemur Morti) due out on April 3rd. Inspired by The Age of Enlightenment, Aara’s new effort looks to the birthplace of modern European thought and finds both beauty and terror in its unrelenting search for Reason and a Scientific Method.
If “Arkanum” seems to open from some misty bower of strummed guitar and eerie keys, it’s not long before one realizes that what hangs in the air isn’t a pastoral haze but the sulfurous smoke of war and destruction. The Ancient Order lies in ruins now while a New Age struggles to replace the mysteries of metaphysics with science and morality.
And thus begins the Age of Reason in a maelstrom of guitar and wailing vocals as blast beats martial the proceedings with their violent demands. Soaring beauty meets Luciferian horror on this long-form cut as Aara narrates the essence of the European intellectual project through a visceral aural tension capable of collapsing at any moment from under its own monumental sonic weight.
