Wrapping up extreme metal cassette week by moving away from the death/thrash and charting blacker waters. I definitely recall where I heard of Auriferous Flame, the one man black metal entity purveying in old school but decidedly anti-fascist black metal: Banger TV’s Cassette Cult – the top 10 underground releases off 2023. Mainman Ayloss is also the sonic mind behind Spectral Lore, but the music he peddles as Auriferous Flame is much more second wave worship, albeit with modern melodic flourishes, which is definitely my thing. The Insurrectionists And The Caretakers is listed as an EP with only three songs, but when your first track is an epic 15 minutes and the whole album clocks in at close to a half hour, those labels become meaningless. This thing rocks, so let quickly get into it.

I find myself at a bit of a loss describing the music. I’ve been listening to the album for the last three days, and opening track “The Insurrectionists” is a marvelously constructed epic, the drums crips and clear (if they’re programmed they sound great) and the guitars bright and trebly without sounding overly harsh. The riffs are a huge highlight, swerving between the entire spectrum of Darkthrone’s career with special emphasis some of their more modern output. But then Ayloss will open it up with long, extended open chords and anguished howls. Never content to sit in one area for long, the track moves through its styles and influences smoothly, and conceptually really hits home by subverting the typical black metal tropes to craft a fantastical story where the collective rises up to defeat the ominous evil of those who would repress and lord tyrannically over the populace.

I’ve always been one to say that just having a great message isn’t enough if you don’t have the songwriting and chops to back it up; fortunately that’s never been a problem for Auriferous Flame (or Spectral Lore…or Mystras, Ayloss’s other project for that matter). This is seriously punishing and finely executed black metal that is brimming with incredible riffs, changes, and a vocal attack that would make most other band run and take cover.

Following a killer first side, the second side is taken up by the 1-2 punch of “The Caretakers” and “An Oration To The Storm”. The former takes an aggressive, more traditional black metal approach, although keen ears can hear the underpinnings of thrash, death, and even a little (very little) smidgeon of hardcore. The guitars that open “An Oath To The Storm” are the last thing I expected to come out of Auriferous Flame, but the mix of that lead with the storm effects and keyboards leading into a massive old school thrash attack might make for my favorite track on the album. If you want some more glowing words on the album and the project in general, my colleague Colin reviewed this and the equally excellent previous record over at Nine Circles.

---

Going back and revisiting these albums over the past has reignited my passion for extreme music. I forget when I’m in the swirl of discovering new artists and music in my current obsessions like 70s prog and J-Jazz that the music that turned me into the music nerd I am today was heavy, fast, brutal and loud. There are a lot more cassettes to be played, all currently sitting in a basket in the drawer of my stereo cabinet, so maybe we’ll revisit it again sooner rather than later. For now, if you’re looking for metal slightly off the mainstream path, you can do so much worse than check out Auriferous Flame, Noxis, Sovereign, Demoniac, and Helms Deep.