Aun - VII (Important, 2010)

Aun - Blackhole


Aun was one of those bands/dudes I'd always heard of and sounded really awesome but never actually heard. Then he contacted me out of the blue, wanting me to review his new record on the infallible Important so I kinda creamed my pants a little because that's just too. fucking. cool.

To be honest, Aun sounds kinda like what I expected after hearing about him. But WHOA. You could've told me he sounded like angels in ecstasy and I still would have my expectations blown away. VII is just fucking incredible.

Here is some intensely blissful doomatic psych noise perfection. Massive stone walls of crumbling distortion that no sound system could ever do justice to. This is so fucking dense & white hot, the kind of rock found emanating from the inner core of the earth. Chaotic static rumbling through the veins of deep space, black holes burning pure energy, staving off starvation in the middle of infinite deserts, every universe collapsing into the singularity, and through it all a sense of underlying beauty. Not just the "beauty in the brutal" (though there's a shitton of that) but there are actually sweet sounds being whipped off like solar prominences. Harmonic euphoria pushing all the right buttons. So you got your heavy as fuck rock and your heavenly bliss all in one, making VII utterly unstoppable.

Voivod's Away takes on the drums for many of the songs, reminding me of when Nadja added live percussion on Desire In Uneasiness. Which really brings to mind one term, and if you're a regular here, you'll know it's one I rarely use. EPIC. There are times when that word is wholly necessary and this is one of them. VII is just fucking epic. There's no denying it. And I can't think of a single person who doesn't love some seriously epic riffage, so do yourself a favor and grab a copy of this already.