Brunuhville
New Age, 2013

From the opening track, the soaring title track, all the way to the last one, King of the North, BrunuhVille is intent on bringing majestic anthems that would be right at home in either fantasy video games or epic fantasy movies. There are the obligatory female soprano wailing over some of these tracks, and even the names of the tracks are straight out of the fantasy genre: The White Forest, Hymn to Eternity, Dance with Dragons, Draig Llofrudd (that’s “Dragon Slayer” in Welsh), and so forth. Lots of dramatic strings, piano, and the occasional wind instrument all add to the atmosphere.

While Aura doesn’t offer anything new or innovative, the tracks here all have their distinctive kind of vibe and atmosphere, therefore preventing this tracks here from blurring together and become one long elevator track – a problem that plagues many new age albums out there. The Celtic influences here are stronger than some of BrunuhVille’s other works, which is nice as I have a fondness for such music. With non-stop drama from start to finish, this one makes a very pleasant replacement for the music of those Bioware or Bathesda fantasy games.

All in all, Aura is basically another result of BrunuhVille in action. If you have listened to his works before, this one won’t contain many surprises, but this one has enough memorable moments to make it one of his more interesting works in his catalog.