The Aurora Project - Unspoken Words

Progressive Rock. Intelligent rock music, consisting of drawn-out compositions which require a level of profiency regarding musicianship and playing techniques. This kind of music is usually played by people who want to write long, melodic and challenging songs. People who oftenly are in their 30s as well, but that's not really my point. Everytime I need to review a CD like this, I realise how little I actually know about music in general. Sure, I can play a decent bit of drums, but who am I to critise full-blown concept albums made by musicians who are in a higher league than what I am? I’ll give it a shot anyway.

'Unspoken Words', The Aurora Project’s first album is based around the concept of "I feel, so I exist". The band exists of 5 Dutchmen, who have worked for around 5 years realising this product. The band is also responsible for all the artwork, merchandise, showelements and what not. This seems to be a trend regarding bands and I can only admire and give it my thumbs up.

Musically, the band has some similarities to (and are influenced by) bands like Pink Floyd, Porcupine Tree and even some Tool, and somehow I heard a bit of fellow-Dutchers The Gathering. The songs themselves are well written, with easy-on-the ears melodies and supporting synth work, creating an atmospheric atmosphere. Of course there is a good amount of rock, but real metalheads should look somewhere else.

I personally liked some of the more tribal-like drumming segments (and also some brushwork), breaking away a bit from the rock-feel. Good job by drummer Joris Bol on that! The downside of this type of music (in my honest opinion), are the vocalists. Personally I have always found it very hard to listen to a guy singing in progrock, regardless of his control over his voice. Sometimes it seems that there are two kind of singers, the really trained ones which sound like they had a testicle-amputation, and basically the not-trained ones who might have the best intentions but lack the necessary reach and variation. With vocalist Dennis, The Aurora Project have a guy who has a pleasant voice to listen to, he didn’t make me think about leather pants instantly.

My main pet-peeve are the narator tracks. Between tracks, a voice tells us what is happening to the character that is featured in the songs. I’m not the first reviewer complaining about this but this storytelling really interupts the flow of the cd. The idea is good, and it's an integral part of the whole concept, but maybe the band could have put the storytelling into a bit more of a musical framework instead of some space synths and bleeps backing it up. Some songs could have a bit more variation as well, sometimes I had the feeling that I could do without those few extra bars of that melody, but that's really nitpicking.

Fans of bands mentioned above and also projects like Ayreon, Star-One (or basically any Arjen Lucassen project) can go out and get this record. The Aurora Project managed to make a progrock CD that kept my attention all the way through, probably because the guys put the importance of the compositions on the first place instead of instrumental "wankery" that tends to dominate in this genre all to often. I’m really curious about what comes next because I think The Aurora Project has everything in them to play with the ‘big guys’.