Malignant Aura's Death Doom Festers "In a Timeless Place Beneath the Earth" (Early Track Stream)

When Malignant Aura‘s new album Abysmal Misfortune is Draped Upon Me wants to get low and slow, it does, stretching its phantasmal shroud of mournful harmonies over listeners so slowly time almost seems to stand still. However, the Australian five-piece group also has a keen grasp on visceral death metal, deploying gutter-scraping riffs with sharp edges and malicious twists. Intertwining both heinous disciplines, their debut-full length lashes out with violent outbursts given weight by the oppressive, ponderous atmosphere that always seems to be present no matter the tempo. This is a death/doom record that exemplifies why combining these genres works, and the delightfully miserable sounds that can result. Listen to the new single “In a Timeless Place Beneath the Earth” below.

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Opening with a gloomy melody fit for the charnel house, “In a Timeless Place Beneath the Earth” soon shifts to a quarrelsome groove that seems to stumble along ponderously even with double-bass firing away beneath quickly-picked riffs. Subtle hints of the earlier melodic lament shine through like rays of light into a tomb, and the song’s conclusion takes the earlier choleric motifs and intersperses them with dour harmony and some acrobatic death metal outbursts. In many cases, bands playing ‘fusion’ genres tend to be better at one side of things, but Malignant Aura are masters (and fervent disciples) of doom and death metal alike.

The band comments:

“In a Timeless Place Beneath the Earth” is a fable, told from the perspective of an ancient corpse.

Its lyrics are based on the Buddhist concept of transience, which says that everything, whether material or metaphysical, is subject to decline and destruction. They are neither constant, nor permanent – they come into being and they dissolve.

Our corpse no longer cares about who he was, the meaning that guided his life or caused his death, or how humanity has progressed since. Sardonically, he warns us that in the long run, neither will we, and no concept of God will prevent that.

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Abysmal Misfortune is Draped Upon Me releases May 30th, 2022 via Bitter Loss Records.