Devotion is probably the most gut-wrenching album the band could have ever recorded, when they did. It contains that essence of raw emotion that cripples the listener into utter submission, while keeping your attention so heightened, you couldn’t walk away from it if you tried. Devotion is to metal, what a scrape on the knee is to a child: it hurts and it stings, but most importantly it’s fascinating. You’ve witnessed change, ultimately leading to discomfort, but are now experiencing the wonder of healing. Aurora has finally found the perfect song-writing skill that can convey this feeling. The most surprising aspect is each member plays a separate, equally crucial role in the band’s success. The guitars switch almost mechanically from the standard crunch pattern to a wonderful and angelic state – flowing as effortlessly as a stream through the countryside. Helping segue this switch through the song structures is a rhythm section that has matured considerably, since the last time we heard this talented band. Aurora has always contained some of the most highly-skilled musicians in the scene, but the light subtleties the band is performing nowadays, goes well beyond the call of duty.

Aurora has found a way to inseminate their sound with tribal drumming that doesn’t end up ‘cheapening’ the sound, as well as adding a noticeable amount more of clean vocals – which are agonizing as all hell, to say the very least. As much as I would like to share with you the standout elements of this album on a song-to-song basis, that would be way too tedious for this scribe.

Devotion from start to finish is utterly amazing and contains too many, way too many single points to emphasize. If you purchase one album this year, Devotion should be the only one on your shopping list.

Opener “Kingdom of Hatred” sounds off to an array of fast drumming and turbid riffing that bespeaks of the Stockholm sound in its glory days. This sonic delight is sliced by a melodic solo that comes out of the nowhere and sets the pace for the dingy but catchy riffing of guitarists Tobbe Ole and Daniel Thide. More or less masters at the death metal craft, both guitarists know how to balance aggression and melody without forsaking proper songwriting standards. This couldn’t be truer than on “Ungodly,” a track that sets the benchmark rhythmically brutal death metal. If “Ungodly” is the future of Without Grief’s songwriting standards, I see more than signing to Century Media in the band’s future.

Another example of such craftsmanship is heard on the instrumental simply titled, “Instrumental.” This melodic breather smoothly segues into its heavier counterpart “To the End.” This song is the best example of the marriage of the band’s aggressive/melodic complex, where thick-as-molasses riffs break into soft acoustic passages. It’s as if Carnage somehow managed to beat up and wed Dark Tranquillity. It would make for an intriguing soap opera if it indeed happened. Anyway, “Heaven Torn Apart” treads the same sort of water, although its colossal prologue stumbles, almost by accident, into a silvery lead not unlike Arch Enemy. It’s strange how closer “Only Darkness Lies Ahead” resembles the heart-stopping pace of Carcass’ Heartwork album and a Niklas Sundin-like approach to soloing.

Depending where you stand in Sweden’s offering to the metal world, Absorbing the Ashes may sound predictable, but I’ve really never heard (including Arch Enemy) finesse and brutality uttered in the same sentence, both of which Without Grief possess in huge portions.