Posted by The other day, Breaking Benjamin released their acoustic album–Aurora. Now, I don’t know if I was too busy or a part of me was just disinterested, but I didn’t follow this album too closely before its release. Sure, whenever a single got released I’d listen to it once or twice, but I never gave it much thought. And truth be told, I’m happy that I was disinterested. I know that if I had been REALLY excited for the album, it would have been an agonizing wait.
Aurora blew me away (and no “Blow Me Away” is NOT on the album). For the past few days, the album has been on my constant rotation. However, I find that I can’t talk much about Aurora in the same way that I could talk about some of the other albums that I’ve reviewed, because Aurora consists almost entirely of acoustic covers of already existing songs, and each one sounds fantastic. There is one new song on the album, but I’ll get to that one later.
The album lineup consists of “So Cold”, “Failure”, “Far Away”, “Angels Fall”, “Red Cold River”, “Tourniquet”, “Dance with the Devil”, “Never Again”, “Torn in Two”, and “Dear Agony”. It’s an interesting mix of some of Breaking Benjamin’s more popular songs, but a few did surprise me. For example, I would have expected a “Diary of Jane” Aurora Version before one of “Dear Agony”. However, I do still really, really like all of the songs on the album. I’d say my personal favorite song off of the album is probably “Dance with the Devil”. There’s just something about this version of the song that makes me like it even more than the original. And frankly, I feel like that statement applies to most of the songs, except for “Failure”, “Angels Fall”, and “Tourniquet”.
Something else that Aurora accomplishes is that it gives me a new appreciation for a lot of these songs. For example, it’s not that I didn’t like “Red Cold River” when it first dropped on Ember, it was just kinda difficult to decipher beyond some of the screaming. The Aurora Version, however, is a completely different story. This version allows me to understand the lyrics perfectly, and again, that sentiment applies to a lot of the other songs too, like “Tourniquet”. This new understanding allows me to appreciate some of these songs a lot more than I did in the past.
Something else that I love about Aurora is the guest artist accompaniment on half of the tracks. The accompaniment ranges from Michael Barnes of Red (on “Failure”) to Adam Gontier of Three Days Grace and Saint Asonia (on “Dance with the Devil”) to Lacey Sturm of Flyleaf (on “Dear Agony”), and it’s all fantastic.
Finally, “Far Away” is the only truly new song on the album (though in all honesty some of these Aurora Versions practically feel like new songs), and it’s a good song. Like all of the other songs on this album, “Far Away” is a beautiful and emotional piece that I’d highly recommend listening to, because let’s be honest, a written review will never do a musical album justice (and I’m not just saying that because I know literally nothing about music).
I’d highly recommend giving Aurora a listen to. If you like Breaking Benjamin, I would 100% recommend this album, but even if you weren’t a fan of hard rock or heavy metal music, I’d still recommend checking this album out. Aurora is not a traditional Breaking Benjamin album, and I think that that fact makes this album more accessible to a wider audience, and I’d say that’s a good thing. Aurora is a fantastic album that I cannot stop listening to.
Broad Scope Entertainment 