Aonia were a Band of the Day almost a year back and they recently released their newest EP, Sunchaser.
The last EP I heard from them was very operatic, whereas this one’s more in the vein of “standard” symphonic metal. In my personal opinion, it’s all the better for it. For the benefit of their live show, this means you’ll get the best of both worlds with the mixture of old and new material. Bonus!
There are five tracks for your money and they’re of a very high recorded quality. Aonia is a seven-member band and all of them combine well to create a sound of truly epic scale.
Opening with the title track, the initial blast is very “classic metal”. Once the vocals kick in, the tone changes completely to something more ethereal and these styles continue to wind around each other as the song (and indeed the EP) progress. There are riffs in there that would do Iron Maiden proud and the two vocalists – Jo and Mel – complement each other as well as the musical styles themselves.
Even this opening song is broad in its vision, something that’s true of all five tracks, and there’s a long keyboard segment as well. As an opening track you could almost treat it as a kind of overture giving, as it does, full exposure to each and every member of the group. It’s also my favourite, though the final track “Nightmares” comes close. This is an ideal EP-ender with it’s “end credits of a film” kind of a feel. The repeated rhythm and Maiden-esque (again!) crash at the tail put an air of finality to proceedings… until you wrap around to track one and go through it all again.
This is a truly enjoyable slice of operatic/symphonic metal – highly recommended. Check out their official page for purchase links.
Thank you so much for your kind words and for taking the time to write up your thoughts! ~Mel x
You’re very welcome! Best of luck with this and all future projects.