AURORA - “The Gods We Can Touch” Album Review
On Friday, Jan. 21st AURORA finally released her third studio album “The Gods We Can Touch.”
During AURORA’s start with music, she maintained an electropop and nordic folk sound. Her themes focused on nature, the LGBTQIA+ community, storytelling and writing music for “free spirits.”
At 19, her first album “All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend” officially dropped in 2016 and included various songs that she wrote at different points of her youth.
Like most of AURORA’s projects “The Gods We Can Touch” is a spiritual journey formed by amazing vocals and experimental sounds. Throughout the album, there are aspects of nordic folk music, ethereal wave, electropop and EDM.
Each track was created to focus on different stories from Greek mythology.
From the start of the album, the intro track “The Forbidden Fruits of Eden” gives listeners a familiar folk-song sound. The song was written to embody the Greek Goddess nature, Gaea, and it does it well with AURORA gently harmonizing with herself.
The music then slips into more exciting and club sounds with “Everything Matters” and “Giving In To The Love.”
Pomme, the French feature on “Everything Matters,” is the only feature on the album and is perfectly placed. When listening to the song, Pomme and AURORA’s vocal techniques are so similar that both artists almost sound identical.
The third track “Cure For Me” is written as a message in support of the LGBTQ+ community and takes on an EDM beat. This is one of the more club-worthy tracks on the album.
“Exist for Love” was one of the first singles released from this album. It’s a delicate ballad and was dedicated to the Goddess Aphrodite. The lyrics are centered on romantic love which is one of AURORA’s first songs to touch on the subject.
The sixth track “Heathens” and seventh track “The Innocent” are almost the opposite of “Exist for Love” and pick up the pace of the album.
The album then goes back and forth between intense and faster-paced music to soft and strong pieces.
The most experimentation also occurs towards the end of the album. “ A Dangerous Thing,” “Artemis” and “Blood in The Wine” all take on new shapes and aren’t just EDM or pop. Each song instead mixes slight hints of different genres like polka and honkytonk. The music while being extremely different matches her voice and she blends in like another instrument.
The album ends on a soft note with “A Little Place Called The Moon” where the song is mostly instrumental and ends with simplistic lyrics.
There isn’t a point in which the album feels unbalanced and it leads into each song fluidly.
AURORA’s vocals are beautifully complimented on every track and display her high register range.
Occasionally some of the tracks feel similar to artists’ songs, but it still doesn’t take away from the enjoyment of listening to the album as a whole.
Overall, the album is the keeper of absolute bangers. Anyone who already appreciates AURORA’s music will find tracks on here that resonate with them.
Additionally, some of AURORA’s best works are on here, so definitely take the time to listen to this whole album, with both earbuds.
If she continues on this strong path of artistry, she’ll go down as an industry legend.
Rating: 9/10
Reviewer’s Favorite Tracks: “Everything Matters,” “Cure For Me,” “Exist for Love”
Reviewer’s Least Favorite Tracks: “This Could Be A Dream”
Erell Williams is a first-year majoring in broadcasting journalism. To contact her, email exw5303@psu.edu.
