Aghora - Formless
Dobles Productions Inc – 371028187 – Out Now
By Dan Fisher
Six years!
Six years! Six
years! Six! You would be forgiven for thinking that
Aghora had fallen ill to their genius and moved to China to smoke tons of opium with Lennon and Jim Morrison. This however is not the case. It was in 2002 that a certain R.G., well known to these pages, gave me
Immortal Bliss to listen to and I was blown away by the beauty of the vocals, juxtaposed with the technicality of the riffing and unusual far eastern philosophical influences. Move forward five years and the lineup has changed somewhat: the only founding members left are Santiago Dobles and Sean Reinert (although there was an incarnation pre-Reinert when Dobles was at Berklee Music College). To fully catalogue the changes would be rather dull so let me introduce new additions Diana Serra on vocals, Alan Goldstein on Bass and Giann Rubio on drums.
Formless shows an ambition and maturity that was not fully developed on
Aghora’s earlier records. The production is tighter and the mix really packs a wallop in places, in particular the drums that now have a great tonality to them. The album opens with the flamenco/eastern fusion jam
’Lotus’, then sends us spiralling into
’Atma’s Heave’. A heart stopping blend of technicality and lush vocals, this is
Aghora at their very best. Other stand out tracks for me are
’Fade’,
’Dual Alchemy’,
’Mahayana’ and
’Formless’.
’Fade’ shows off some gorgeous chord progressions and haunting lyrics while
’Dual Alchemy’ places the vocals higher in the mix with less delay, allowing the delivery to have more impact. One of my main criticisms of the album is that they’ve put too many effects on Serra’s voice which makes her sound watered down in places. Also, while I concede they are working to her strengths by having the vocals mostly legato, a more percussive use of vocals would be more suited to some of the snaking guitar passages.
’Mahayana’ and
’Formless’ are musical behemoths that push the boundaries of structure and technicality. Santiago shreds like a man possessed while engineering the sound down into looser meanderings that feature cosmic synth. arrangements and laser guided drumming.
Formless ends with
’Purification’, featuring a mantra-like chant that is guaranteed to fill dance floors up and down the country (maybe). Overall, this album feels like a purging of the demons that have prevented the band from creating in the way they wanted to over the last 6 years. It has been worth the wait though and apart from some weird additions like the instrumental tribute to Dimebag Darrell,
‘Dime’, the song writing has seen an encouraging improvement.
Aghora have searched within themselves and come back with a release that’s intellectual but accessible. Technical but beautiful. Brutal but tender. There may not be much fanfare around this self-released album but I urge anyone remotely curious to check out
Formless.
Official Aghora Website
Dobles Productions Website
