### Lunar Aurora: Zyklus

#### 22/04/09 || GardensTale

I’ll admit up front, I’m not a black metal buff. I enjoy some Naglfar and Axamenta, but neither is exactly blacker than the blackest black times infinity. So when I picked out Zyklus to review, I figured I was in for something new, for better or for worse.

Well, lemme tell you up front, this is really a GEM of an album. GEM here meaning Gargantually Embarrassing Mess. Fuck, I don’t know what these guys were taking, but it’s nothing I could recommend. Lunar Aurora play atmospheric black metal, a genre I suspect is a very acquired taste. Either that or they really are as shit as they seem. Or both. Whatever.

Apparently, when asked what kind of production these guys wanted, I imagine they just said: “Atmospheric, duh.”

The producer returned and said: “Okay, I added twelve layers of reverb and echo. Is that enough to make it atmospheric?”

“NO!” Lunar Aurora shouted. “MORE reverb! MORE echo!”

Etcetera ad nauseam.

None of the instruments or the vocals have any kind of substance. It’s all sort of floating about, nothing particularly grabbing you, nothing standing out. The vocals are standard black metal screech but drowning in the wind tunnel style production. The music is incredibly boring, riffs all sound the same, there’s nothing particularly surprising, inspiring or even standing out in comparison to other songs.

The songs themselves sound the same as well; you could put any of the 4 songs here on and I wouldn’t know the difference. It’s all just boring, and to me that’s about the biggest sin possible in metal when there are so many bands that provide you with very strong emotions, even if it’s revulsion. This isn’t horrible by a long stretch, it’s hardly truly bad: here and there some riffs sound kind of nice, even when they are repeated too many times. But Zyklus just revels in its atmosphericness (new word for the thesaurus, I imagine) so much it becomes a windy mess not worth your time.

Or mine, for that matter.

4,5 wind tunnels out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 2004
- Label: Mercenary Music
- Website: www.lunaraurora.de
- Band
- Aran: drums, guitars, voice
- Whyrhd: guitars, voice
- Sindar: bass, keyboards, voice

- Tracklist
- 01. Der Morgen
- 02. Der Tag
- 03. Der Abend
- 04. Die Nacht