Reeking Aura – Blood and Bonemeal (Review)

Take a Death Metal concept album about a psychotic agricultural caretaker, combine this with an album cover that could also be used to be a Folk-Prog-Something artist and then you get Reeking Aura‘s debut album Blood and Bonemeal.

Blood and Bonemeal is rooted deep in Old-School Death Metal. Three (!) guitarists take care of the vicious plowing while singer William “Big Will” Smith (Ex- Artificial Brain, Afterbirth) gurgles the horrendous seed out of his throat.

“Remnant of Obstinate Rank (Flooding Ratholes)” settles the ground for the madness that is to come in the following 34 minutes. Armed with a massive mid-tempo finish and a growl straight out the rotten soil you’ll immediately get the right mood to get through this record.

A little thing I really like about this record are those small, delicate outros to the songs “Blood and Bonemeal“, “Harvesting the Hatchet” and “Pyramid-Shaped Plow/The Caretaker“. It is as if the psychotic caretaker rested a moment, looked at his crops swaying in the wind just to get back to his morbid psychosis only a few minutes later. Those three tracks are the essence of the album for me. They contain everything that is awesome about this release.

Just like the psychotic caretaker, this record twists and turns. Death Metal and Doom Metal parts are the tools of choice for Reeking Aura to make the listener as tensed and floored as possible. This album will surely thrive among the highest rank any heavy album of the year list.