Song Styles

Lindsey is about to depart from the usual character themesong focus of this post and discuss a musical album - so if that's not to your taste, exit now, but I will tell you it has a very fantasy vibe, even though it has no specific speculative content.

I'm speaking of Aurora's All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend.  I first encountered Aurora through the television show "Good Behavior," which used Running With The Wolves in the close of an episode.  The song mesmerized me enough to look her up, and I ordered the album ... but on the advice of those who had purchased the digital album, I ordered the deluxe version, which wasn't available on CD yet (and still isn't) ... and forgot about it.

(Sidebar:  I say that there's no speculative content to the music, but on my first viewing of the music video above, that very theatric and peculiar mini story definitely has dystopian / fantasy elements.  So I think it's fair to say that there's a very dark, mythical, fantastic bent to her style.)

Quite a while later, I realized that the CD was still pending on Amazon, and I was still also very interested in the music, so I bit the bullet, canceled my order, and bought the digital version of the deluxe album.

Aurora's music is generally dark and moody, slower in tempo, though with a few exceptions, such as Conqueror.  (Here's another one where the music video is purely fantastical.)  Some of the songs blur together, and because of the overall musical pace, it's somewhat monotonous to listen to the album as a whole ... but individually, most have a lot to offer.  I'm a bit obsessed with her Murder Song (5, 4, 3, 2, 1), which is faster tempo and a perfect blend of mood with atmospherics.

As far as the deluxe version goes, it's a mixed bag.  There's a cover of the ubiquitous Nature Boy.  I found Wisdom Cries actively painful to listen to, but Half The World Away is lovely.  The best parts of the deluxe edition, in fact, are the two alternate versions of Running With The Wolves and Murder Song, which take opposite tactics.  Running With The Wolves takes the musical themes and multiplies them in mesmerizing repetition.  Murder Song strips out the atmosphere and lets the song stand on its own.

Recommended, but the deluxe version is optional.