Gray Aura – Zwart Vierkant: Slotstuk

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• Band:
  Gray Aura
• Duration: 00:47:01
• Available from: 28/03/2025
• Label:

• Avantgarde Music

Streaming not yet available

Sometimes it happens to come across remarkable work which, aiming for higher outcomes of simple entertainment, can be extremely difficult to face: the liberating scream “'The battleship Kotiomkin' is a crazy shit!” In “The second tragic Fantozzi” well expresses the exasperation of the common man in the face of difficult works.
Fortunately., Metal already offers in itself a land on which it is possible to reconcile artistic needs very well with those of the entertainment: if you cannot properly speak of 'catchy', it is still generally offered a certain degree of usability; The will then to communicate personal, original, controversial contents, can compete to decree the dignity of real works of art for some discs.
An album that can certainly be considered in this context, is this new “Zwart Vierkant: Slotstuk”, of the Dutch Gray Aura, their third unreleased album which, as explicit entitled – translated, “black square: last act” – is the second part of the concept started with the previous one, acclaimed “Zwart Vierkant” released four years ago: a concept based on the novel of the singer and Guitarist Ruben Wijlacker “The Protodood in Zwarte Haren” (“The black hair of Protomorte”), a journey into abstract art and in the psychological disintegration that involves Pedro, an avant -garde painter of the twentieth century, who aims to dismantle physical reality through abstraction; This is, this, which will bring him to the verge of madness.
The reason for the black square is the symbol of the Russian avant -garde current of suprematism, founded at the beginning of the twentieth century by Kazimir Malevič, who claimed that the modern artist should look at an art free from practical and aesthetic purposes and operate by supporting only his pure plastic sensitivity: until then the painting had been nothing more than the aesthetic representation of reality, while the end of the artist had to be to see path capable of leading to the essence of art, to art as an end in itself.
Abstract art would therefore be higher than the figurative one: in a figurative framework we see any object or living form represented, while in the supremist work there is only one element, the color, which is expressed in the best possible way in abstract and geometric form. The form claims total autonomy, opposing the objectivity of the real world.
In Wijlacker's novel, Pedro is so fascinated by Malevič's theses that we see an unlimited artistic potential and a real spiritual lighting; But this fascination is transformed during the events in a real obsession, which will bring Pedro's artistic path and its existence itself to the extreme consequences.
Musically, the Utrecht quartet is the son of that movement that developed in Norway almost in parallel, rather than subsequently, to the second wave of the black metal of the early nineties; Usually inserted in the cauldron of the Avant-Garde Metal, it was made up of groups such as Arcurus, in The Woods, Ved Buens Ende, Ulver, Fleurety, Manes, Dødheimsgard and Solfald.
In particular, the albums that resurface to mind listening to “Zwart Vierkant: Slotstuk” are “Bergertt” of the Ulver, for the minimal but refined acoustic passages that instill the songs and atmospheres now inhuman, now strangers; “The Linear Scaffold” of Solefald, for the philosophical and literary suggestions; “Written in Waters” by Ved Buens Ende, for the run -up to dissonances and jazzate trend.
Obviously, since Gray Aura is a young group and having passed almost thirty years, it is possible to recognize other influences, mainly borrowed from the post-hardcore and the Math Rock, while for example two of the most popular trends in contemporary post-Black Metal, the shoegaze and psychedelia, are completely absent.
It should be emphasized that the stylistic choices of the Dutch marries perfectly with what was narrated in the texts: the complexity of the plot, the descent to the underworld of its protagonist, the peculiarity of talking about art in a work that in turn is art itself stand out in an exemplary way in the crazy and unpredictable scores of the Gray Aura, capable of building an ideal bridge between music, painting and literature.
The rhythmic section is classy and subverts the clichés of the Black Metal: the bass of Sylwin Cornielje is very heard and enriches the compositions, while the battery of Seth Van de Loo is far from monotonous and magnet on itself most of the attention. The guitars of Wijlacker and Tjebbe Broek, while lingering a lot on the classic tremolo picking, are still tasty and unpredictable, by virtue of the rhythmic and harmonious variety; The right mix among the instruments enhances its sound, which is never annoyingly mosquitoes. Wijlacker's Stenterus scream tends to be a little monocordic, but it is sufficiently personal and sets with the brush with the proposal.
The disc, consistently with its capacity of concept, is extremely compact, both qualitatively and as a stylistic approach, and it is almost useless to fish individual songs in the deck, being all equally interesting and successful.
Compared to its predecessor, the album is generally more classically black metal and, if the avant -garde of the Gray Aura at times is a little harmful, not bad: the fact of never touching the excessive brainy can only be considered a point in favor. Fans of the most refined and author metal world, here is bread for your teeth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32xflphn3qe