Malignant Aura - Where All of Worth Comes to Wither

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Malignant Aura is a death/doom metal band from Australia that formed in 2018. Their latest album, “Where All of Worth Comes to Wither,” is their second full-length album.

I didn't review it but I was a fan of their debut and I’m thrilled to have the chance to write about their second dark opus.  “Where All of Worth Comes to Wither,” is even better than the debut and has something to offer for fans of both death and doom metal.   Malignant Aura certainly knows their craft—when your car slides on the ice, you steer into the skid. With “Where All of Worth…” is concerned, the skid is the depth of unfathomable death and darkness


The atmosphere of this album is incredible.  It is bleak and cold without sounding distant—if anything, this album is constantly right in your face, gnawing and hacking away. But the atmosphere is mired in a slithering, stalking blackness that wraps around the soul like a coiled snake crushing its prey. 


The album is “just” five songs, three of which are over 10 minutes in length.  If you’re a doom fan, these longer songs won’t bother you.  The album is so well crafted and finely tuned with its chaos that the song will actually flow by surprisingly fast and, before you know it, you’ll find yourself hitting the repeat button. With that being said, the album is still just over 45 minutes so, in my humble opinion, the album is the perfect length, 


The title track opens the album—it could be seen as an intro but it is over three minutes and glides right into the first proper track.  I think this album works even better listening from beginning to end (though it can certainly be enjoyed on a piecemeal basis) so this song sets up the album very well.  Oh and it’s crushing too so there’s that.


“The Pathetic Festival,” takes the rising action of the intro and lets it go full throttle.  This song is fast paced in sections, the band unafraid to let the death metal side of their doom shine through.  The drumming is hefty but also razor sharp—just an incredible performance all the way around.  The vocals, as expected, are disgusting and that is, of course, a compliment.  Music like this isn’t pretty and doesn’t need pretty vocals.  Period.  My favorite moment on the song is middle passage—the song becomes heavy, even during the slight breaks in the song where the atmosphere gets to speak in between the notes and those same notes get to drop meteors from the sky. 


“Langushing in the Perpetual Mire,” might be the coolest song title I've heard in awhile and the song sounds just like I thought it would:  dismal, unrelenting, and a feeling of being stuck in some impossible situation where the only escape is the sweet, sweet release of death.  The first six minutes or so are sickening….the instruments sort of laying down a miasma of, well, perpetual mire.  This doom is sick and twisted—just how I like it.  After the six minute mark, the tempo picks up but there isn’t any safety ground because the band won’t allow anything less than impending doom.


“Beneath a Crown of Anguish," is placed perfectly in the track list as the “shorter” of the three long songs.  It flows so well, even when the stark melodies lay themselves upon the suffocating riffs.  There is a bit of a Gothic atmosphere to this song and I think it is a great success for their sound—makes the song sound even more morbid.   As the song rumbles towards the end, the violence growls larger and deeper—the audio equivalent of a volcano finally blowing its top. Or crown, tee hee.


The final song, “An Abhorrent Path to Providence,” is my favorite song of the bunch.  The opening melodies are very impressive, as are the raspy high death growls.  The drums and bass handle the slow rhythms with a flow that most bands who are this extreme just can’t produce.  The flurry of drums that crop up here and there are almost panic inducing.  The tone of the guitars is pure evil and finishing the song is like descending deeper into a hellish unknown. 


Cleary, Malignant Aura’s “Where All of Worth Comes to Wither,” is an undoubtedly impressive album.  Even the most discerning doom fan (such as myself) cannot help but be impressed.  Highly recommended.


Rating: Excellent

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