Aughra

The dark ambient subgenre hasn't been so strong since the mid-'80s/early '90s, when creatures like Zoviet France and Rapoon slithered over the British heartland. While Aughra's Brent Eyestone doesn't stick exclusively to those deep shadows, a good number of them fall across his full-length debut. Opener "Et In Arcadia Ego" neatly crosses the mid-'90s Bristol wires of Flying Saucer Attack and Portishead by sitting a nest of fuzzy guitar noise atop a slinky drum machine beat. Things get a little more clockwork on "Machinelike Registration of Proximity," a corroded goosestep by Schwarzenegger-ian toy soldiers. The title suggests a certain balance, and the second half of the album finds the murky medium of marsh gas electronics obfuscating distant sheets of guitar heat lightning. Aughra's quiet menace seems to exist as a dream world version of Eyestone's work with Forensics, a less-than-obvious metalcore quartet given to tasteful loud/quiet dynamics. The metal may be deteriorating from its immersion in aquatic electronics but it still has sharp edges.