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Hot 'N' Heavy

    
       
       
       
     
             
Scarlet Aura are a heavy metal band from Romania forming in 2014 as Aura, changing their name to Scarlet Aura the following year and releasing their debut album 'Falling Sky' in 2016. Okay, okay, Scarlet Aura fans, I hear you - as Aura, the band released one album, 'The Rock Chick', in 2014. But as this is a review of the Scarlet Aura era, I stand by what I said regards the bands debut album. The sophomore album from Scarlet Aura 'Memories', was released in 2017, with 'Hot 'N' Heavy', the bands third album, a 2018 release.    
             
Featuring the husky, growling rasp, and to be really honest, sexy voice of lead singer Aura Danciulescu, Scarlet Aura continue to cement their place in metal history with their third album 'Hot 'N' Heavy'. A mighty one hour play time offering twelve songs opens with the atmospheric and crescendo building instrumental 'This Future Becomes Our Past', launching the album proper with the monstrous riffing 'Hail To You'. Bombastic and brash 'Hail To You' is a majestic march of anthemic proportions, with the sexy voice of lead singer Aura sending tingles all around my body... The punch and bite of 'Hail To You' is fairly vicious and up front, yet also heavily melodic at the same time. 'In The Name Of My Pain' takes up the baton that 'Hail To You' ran with. Heavy hitting heavy metal with a crushing gallop of a chorus break, 'In The Name Of My Pain' will force heads back and forth at a very high rate. And just after two songs in, Scarlet Aura have set their stall out to deliver a more traditional heavy metal sound than the European power metal one you'd expect from a European metal band. The title song 'Hot 'N' Heavy' is riff heavy, a meaty swagger of buzzing guitars, a mid tempo march of heaviness that reminds me of American heavy metallers Phantom Blue, and the direction they took with their second album, 1993's 'Built To Perform'.    
             
Atmospheric and haunting is the opening to 'Fallin' To Pieces', the guitars buzzing like a chainsaw ready to fell trees. A mid tempo heavy stomp of epic slower heavy metal you'd expect to find on a Dio album, 'Fallin' To Pieces' packs a meaty punch. Pace, power and punch are all increased as the thundering 'Glimpse In The Mirror' takes flight, with just the slightest hint of symphonic metal. Bombastic and head bangingly addictive, 'Glimpse In The Mirror' is traditional foot on the monitor heavy metal. The chorus is a sing a long style affair, the rhythm is infectious and blow me, the entire fucking song is one hundred percent excitement. A definite favourite of mine on the album. With such an aggressive title, 'You Bite Me, I Bite You Back' you'd expect it to be filled with hate and attitude...deffo plenty of the latter, not sure about the former, but blimey 'You Bite Me, I Bite You Back' is the harshest song on the album so far. Mixing in a little of the thrash metal angriness, 'You Bite Me, I Bite You Back' might just actually bite you... Beware... Beware... 'Hate Is Evanescent, Violence Is Forever' maintains the albums sudden turn toward a more angry and aggressive stance. The heavy guitars and the Ronnie James Dio-esque vocal delivery makes 'Hate Is Evanescent, Violence Is Forever' a majestic march of epic heavy metal, climactic and glorious.    
             
'Hot 'N' Heavy' (the album) is getting better and better as it progresses, the unrelenting heaviness a pure joy. 'Silver City' picks up the pace and is a thundering heavy metal assault, bringing back the foot on the monitor style of the classic and, traditional sound of heavy metal. And all the tingling sensations I have everywhere from Aura's voice are still there... Entering the airways all mellow and ballad like, 'Light Be My Guide' is the albums least heavy metal moment, allowing a breather from the intensity of what has gone before. Never a fan of ballads on a heavy metal album, 'Light Be My Guide' retains enough punch to keep one foot in the heavy rock genre, so really it isn't a ballad at all... And now for a new let's get the party started and rock the house anthem - 'Let's Go Fuckin' Wild'. Up tempo and fizzing with energy, 'Let's Go Fuckin' Wild' is fun, exciting and will move even the shyest wall flowers toward the middle of the room to join the (already) dancing party animals. The final song is a bonus offering - 'To New Horizons', performed by the Balkan Stars Project, a collaboration that brought together three bands from the Balkan region in Europe, Krossfire (Bulgaria), Alogia (Serbia) and of course, Scarlet Aura (Romania). Over seven minutes of epic, symphonic tinged melodic heavy metal, 'To New Horizons' is an opera encore, a gathering of the cast for a final bow, and a climactic end to an album of intense heavy metal.    
             
Overall, intense and very heavy, 'Hot 'N' Heavy' is an enjoyable and charismatic journey of hard hitting, traditional, metal anthems.    
             
             
Review by Iron Mathew Collins    
             
Reviewed for Metal Gods TV    
             
             
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