ALBUM REVIEW: Abysmal Misfortune Is Draped Upon Me – Malignant Aura

A tip for anyone thinking of starting a band: when you throw a comparison to a genre legend like PARADISE LOST into the promo for your new album, then you better make sure you can back it up. Fortunately, that’s precisely what Australia’s MALIGNANT AURA have done here on their debut album Abysmal Misfortune Is Draped Upon Me. They have unleashed on the world a rock solid slab of modern death doom that scratches every itch that fans possess spread mercilessly across six tracks and 50 minutes. MALIGNANT AURA don’t reinvent the wheel, nor do they need to. Instead they grab the wheel and bludgeon you about the head with it.

Diving into the deepest, darkest doomic recesses, and soaring to the frenzied, ferocious heights of death metal, the quintet never settle in their pursuit to sound downright evil. There Is Blackness In The Water is a particularly loathsome beast, lurching from passage to creeping passage intent on swallowing everything in its path. The malice is palpable; a tar-like pit of despair and anguish spills forth via an onslaught of guttural growls. The sonic terror continues through the likes of In A Timeless Place Beneath The Earth. The guitar tone carries some sort of terrible majesty with it, as if to soundtrack the arrival of some ruler of the afterlife. It creates a commanding presence that is sure to grab your attention in an icy, vice-like grip from which there’s no hope of escape.

On the other side of this miserable coin, Soliloquy Beneath The Sepulchre takes the more doom-like low and slow approach; like tendrils winding their way into your very soul, the agonising guitar riffs and sparse cymbal crashes come slowly but surely, taking over every inch of your spectral being. The final outburst of blast beats and fury rip their new host limb from limb; the damage is done and an indelible mark is left upon your sonic persona.

…And So It Was That I Lay Down Forever brings this tortured journey to its conclusion through a tangled web of blistering riffs and atmosphere drenched in feedback. Flip flopping between death metal growls and spoken word chronicles gives a good amount of texture to proceedings, but opting to finish on the more measured end of the spectrum results in an ending that feels more meandering than it does menacing. Thematically it makes sense and it completes the story being told, but for the intensity shown just minutes before, something feels devastatingly lacklustre about those final moments.

If you’re a fan of the death doom subgenre, then Abysmal Misfortune Is Draped Upon Me will not provide anything new. But anything you feel like you have heard before is done to such a high standard that this should be considered quintessential listening in 2022. MALIGNANT AURA may not yet be on a level with their heroes in PARADISE LOST or MOURNFUL CONGREGATION, but these monarchs of the macabre would be wise to keep an eye on this newest potential usurper.

Rating: 8/10

Abysmal Misfortune Is Draped Upon Me is set for release on May 30th via Bitter Loss Records.

Like MALIGNANT AURA on Facebook.