Avrigus

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Avrigus
General information
origin Sydney , Australia
Genre (s) Gothic metal
founding 2001
Website www.avrigus.com
Current occupation
Simon Gruer
singing
 Megan Robins aka Megan Tassaker
former members
Vocals, keyboard, piano , acoustic guitar
Judy Chiara

Avrigus is an Australian gothic metal duo from Sydney that was founded in 1991.

history

Avrigus was founded in 1991 by Simon Gruer. However, Avrigus has only been active as a band since 1995, after he met the singer Judy Chiara in 1993. After Gruer's band Cruciform broke up, he was able to concentrate fully on Avrigus and the duo began with the first demo recordings . In March 1998 the first EP was released under the name The Final Wish via Warhead Records . At the beginning of 2000 the group had finished their work on their debut album. Since Warhead Records no longer existed, the group started looking for another label. Through Chiara, the band got a contract with the Dutch label Hammerhead Records . On his sub-label Well of Urd Records , the debut album The Secret Kingdom was released in February 2001 . However, the album was not a financial success for the group. After the duo continued to work together, Gruer announced Chiara's departure in May 2007. At the end of 2009 the work on the album The Hidden Citadel with the singer Megan Robins aka Megan Tassaker was finished. In mid-2010, the five-song EP Beauty and Pain was self-published .

style

Stefan Müller from Metal Hammer said that in the songs “[g] carried ambient sounds” meet “ glowing guitars in a minor key”, over which Chiara's singing hovers. In an interview with him, Chiara stated that the band was formed due to Gruer's and Chiara's mutual preference for Anathema and My Dying Bride . The texts are only negative at first glance, but if you take a closer look at them, you can see a positive side in them. According to Müller, the music is characterized by a “combination of spherical sounds in the style of Dead Can Dance and the heavy riffs used by My Dying Bride”. Robert Pöpperl-Berenda from Rock Hard stated in his review of The Secret Kingdom that the band sounds orchestral, but not very stirring. The group tries to emulate Dead Can Dance, but fail because they "can rarely create a tingling goosebumps atmosphere". He couldn't hear metal influences from the album. According to Svartalv from Metal.de , the band mixes “symphonic keyboards, gentle piano and acoustic passages, darkwave and dramaturgic natural sound effects, captivating medieval melodies and lead-heavy (but never intrusive) guitar riffs into a sound carpet”. The singing reminded him several times of Loreena McKennitt's . Later on, there would also be similarities to Mortiis . A “varied interplay of dreamy classical passages , raised keyboard surfaces and sluggish Doom riffs, epic song structures, imposing choirs, harmony and fragile solo vocals”, which perform the “poetic-romantic lyrics”, are also characteristic. The music is suitable for “lovers of melancholy Doom / Ambient music with depth, beyond clichés and epigones”, and Svartalv recommended the album to open-minded fans of Die banished Kinder Evas or Dead Can Dance. KwonVerge from metalstorm.net draws parallels to The 3rd and the Mortal . Psycho from nocturnalhall.de, on the other hand, refuses to make associative comparisons and describes the style as a "mixture of skillfully used hard guitars, medieval influences, dark ambient, elegiac melodies and [...] female vocals." Accordingly, the album has "sparsely used [...] ] Gothic-Metal-Elements ", in the background mixed guitar riffs opposite in the foreground" Acoustic guitars, piano sounds [s] and extensive keyboard sounds as well as choirs [...], which skillfully creates a very calm and serene atmosphere ".

Discography

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Garry Sharpe-Young: AZ of Doom, Gothic & Stoner Metal . Cherry Red Books, London 2003, ISBN 1-901447-14-6 , pp. 32 .
  2. ↑ a b c Stefan Müller: Avrigus . The sound of silence. In: Metal Hammer . April 2001, p. 51 .
  3. ^ Brian Giffin: Encyclopedia of Australian Heavy Metal . 3rd revised edition. Dark Star, Katoomba 2015, ISBN 978-0-9943206-1-2 .
  4. ↑ Robert Pöpperl-Berenda: Avrigus . The Secret Kingdom. In: Rock Hard . No. 166 , March 2001, p. 83 .
  5. ↑ Svartalv: Avrigus - The Secret Kingdom. Metal.de , accessed on February 21, 2018 .
  6. ↑ KwonVerge: Avrigus - The Secret Kingdom. metalstorm.net, accessed February 22, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Psycho: Avrigus - The Secret Kingdom. nocturnalhall.de, accessed on February 22, 2018 .