Artist: Aürc
Country: Spain
Label: Diabolical Vitriol
Formats: Demo Tape
Year: 2026
One-man Black Metal project Aürc, hailing from Catalonia, Spain, debuted with a digital demo called ‘Autumn Fires’ by the end of 2021, yet it remained largely unnoticed. Yours truly had also missed the original release, but it came to my attention last year thanks to a reissue on the Spanish label Crimson Tide Productions. Although it was, of course, a possibility, it hadn’t occurred to me that the reissue was also a kind of prelude to new work – after all, the first demo was already five years old at that point. But here it is, ‘Isolation & Mist’, the second demo tape by Aürc, released by Diabolical Vitriol.
In fact, this second effort was released digitally by the band through their Bandcamp page. I don’t know whether that was exactly the plan or whether the French label was quick as a bat to release it on cassette tape, but the result is excellent. And to those of you who’ve been waiting five years for this: it was more than worth the wait.
Aürc stands for, as multi-instrumentalist F.O. claims, “Radical Black Metal”. Although it’s always a bit of a vague concept, I always associate it with bands that come from a specific region of an existing country and harbour very chauvinistic or even separatist sentiments. As is often the case with many bands from the French-speaking part of Canada, for example, or the Spanish region of Catalonia… There may not be a specific sound associated with it, but that sense of pride and patriotism is certainly something you can sense in the music. And that is really the case here as well.
On a pure musical side of things Aürc is very traditional, harking back bygone days where bands like Gorgoroth, Darkthrone, Burzum, Forgotten Woods and Dødheimsgard largely dictated the flavour of the day. ‘Isolation & Mist’, quite fitting to the title, is all about sharp edged guitars and icy screeching vocals in a musical palette that mostly revolves repeating patterns and evoking an overarching cold atmosphere. Yet, within the small bits of melody embedded in the music, a true heroic sort of pagan-like grandeur shines through. That means that the total soundscape of Aürc feels very familiar, but at the same time, F.O. elevates it to the present day through a powerful production that is both raw and poignant.
‘Isolation & Mist’ is a strong return from an underground act that almost fell through the cracks of time. Anyone who loves traditional, hateful and sombre sounding Black Metal that takes you back some three decades would do well to give this demo tape a spin.
