UMUR "Timeline: The Beginning And End Of Everything" is the 5th full-length studio album by US black/death metal act Aurora Borealis. The album was released through Nightsky Productions in February 2011. Aurora Borealis have existed since 1994, and have in their history featured several prolific names in the lineup (among others Tony Laureano, Derek Roddy, Tim Yeung). The only constant member of the band is vocalist/guitarist Ron Vento. On this album he is joined by drummer Mark Green and bassist Jason Ian Vaughn Eckert. The latter also played bass on Aurora Borealis debut full-length studio album "Praise the Archaic Lights Embrace (1998)", but hasn´t been a member in the intermediate years, so he makes a return here.

The music on the album is technically well played blackened death metal. The blackened element is actually limited to the raspy and raw vocals though and other than those vocals, I´d label the music death metal. It´s riff based music with good variation in pace. Blasting sections are combined with mid-paced heavier sections throughout the album. The quality of the songwriting and the execution of the music are relatively high, but "Timeline: The Beginning And End Of Everything" is not the most varied album out there. The tracks are a bit hard to tell apart, and the sound production which lacks dynamics also makes it an album that´s not as memorable as it could have been. Every instrument and vocal track seem like they are set to the same volume throughout the entire album, and it has the effect that you are sometimes left wondering if you are still listening to the same song or if a new one has started.

I´m probably being a bit more critical than I should here, because "Timeline: The Beginning And End Of Everything" is still a pretty great album by Aurora Borealis, and although I have some issues with the album, it´s not certain that other listeners will have the same reservations. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

J-Man Every now and again I'm really amazed with the quality of music being released for free download. Albums like Timeline: The Beginning and End of Everything prove that rummaging through endless piles of mediocre demos eventually pays off! The mere thought that Timeline: The Beginning and End of Everything is being released for free and the entire metal community isn't bowing down to Aurora Borealis is simply disappointing. This album, the band's fifth full-length effort, is bone-crushingly heavy death metal flavored with black metal tendencies and technical song structures. People who enjoy their death metal to sound modern and fresh while still having an old-school approach should be in heaven with this one!

Although Aurora Borealis is often considered to be a black metal act, I only really hear black metal tendencies in the vocals. Ron Vento's vocal delivery mainly consisted of high-pitched shrieks - something that may turn off the death metal purists, but satisfy most open-minded listeners. I think his vocal style perfectly compliments the heavy, technical riff-based death metal that dominates the instrumental portion of this release. The music is categorized mainly by frequent time-changes and just plain technical madness - it's clear right from the start that Aurora Borealis isn't a group of amateurs! Ron Vento's guitar playing often takes the cake, seeing that he is a truly skillful axeman. The rhythm section, consisting of Jason Ian Vaughn Eckert on bass and Mark Green on drums, is equally impressive. Jason Ian Vaughn Eckert delivers plenty of frantic basslines on Timeline: The Beginning and End of Everything and Mark Green's drumming is just pure insanity! The amount of noise that these three guys make is simply stunning!

The conceptual aspect of Timeline: The Beginning and End of Everything may be the most interesting part of this album for sci-fi fans and science geeks. The lyrics here tell the story of the universe, right from the Big Bang all the way through the distant collapse of the universe. Match up this unique concept (surely not one often covered in black/death metal) with some of the most kick-ass extreme metal I've heard this year, and you have a winner for sure!

The production is clear and powerful, without ever sounding over-produced. This album was entirely engineered, produced, mixed, and mastered by Ron Vento - in addition to being an excellent musician, it seems he also has a clue about making a stellar production.

It may seem that Timeline: The Beginning and End of Everything is a near-perfect black/death metal album; it really is! My only gripe is that I would've liked to see a few more guitar solos, but it's not a huge issue. Considering that the band has generously offered the album for free download from their homepage, no extreme metal fan has an excuse for not checking this one out. This is an album that seamlessly incorporates compositional perfection, technical mastery, and balls-out heaviness into one of the best extreme metal albums I've heard this year. 4.5 stars are well-deserved. Highly recommended!

adg211288 Timeline: The Beginning And End Of Everything is the fifth album from the U.S.A.’s Aurora Borealis, released in 2011 strictly with only ever one pressing, but also as a free download complete with digital artwork. The album is a concept piece telling the story of the entire history of the universe, right from the beginning Big Bang through to the rise of Mankind and ultimately to the end of time itself and from there the birth of the next universe. The concept may well appeal to science-fiction fans first and foremost since this is a concept that has been written about in much sci-fi literature.

The music on the album is a black/death metal affair, with a sound being closest to what I’d describe best as blackened death metal. That is to say, the instruments take on a death metal approach but the vocals of Ron Vento are much more suited to black metal than death, though there are some moments where overall the sound leans more towards black metal.

There is an intro track on the album, Our Legacy, which involves setting up the concept with “the last message the human race will send”, before the main story begins with Crucible of Creation, which is an excellent blackened death metal track. It’s clear right from here onwards that Aurora Borealis have produced an album with an incredibly tight sound. Vento’s mix of black metal growls with death metal music really works for them here and the music clearly isn’t written with just brutality in mind, even though it can hit you with a serious punch, there is plenty of technical stuff on offer as well as Vento proves himself worth his salt for guitar skills as well as a talented vocalist and composer. Along with bass guitarist Jason Ian Vaughn Eckert and drummer Mark Green, Aurora Borealis are a very strong and talented unit and Timeline... is probably one of the best death metal albums I’ve heard in some time.

That said Timeline... isn’t a perfect album for me, due to the fact that I don’t find every track on offer quite as memorable as the true highlights like the aforementioned Crucible of Creation and also Stygian Depths, The Only Space Race That Matters, Beyond The Oort Cloud and Tearing Holes In The Fabric Of Time. But it is an extremely solid album that doesn’t have any major down turns in terms of quality and as I stated in my opening paragraph, Aurora Borealis have chosen to release this album as a free download and for me one does not need any more incentive to check it out than that.

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven)