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Brother Dege – Aurora

Florian Buechting Media Review No Comments

Brother Dege - Aurora

Brother Dege - Aurora
4.2

Rating

 4.2/5

Flyctory.com Pros

  • Very nice blues and Americana songs
  • Good storytelling
  • Dramatic plot

Flyctory.com Cons

  • Some slightly lengthy parts

From Louisiana to the world – the current tour dates by Brother Dege feature more upcoming dates by the artist in Europe than in North America. This may not even change, if his new album Aurora. Release date will be 15th March 2023. The release is having a very sad touch already, though: just a week before Aurora is disclosed, the artist died at the age of 66.

 

Brother Dege – About The Artist

Brother Dege is an Americana artist, who is originally from New Orleans. He is active as a solo artist since the earlier 2000’s. In 2004, he released the album Trailerville. Four more albums followed – the most recent one, Farmer’s Almanac has been released in 2018. His music is a mixture of several genres, but majorly a blending of delta blues and rock elements. The sound is sometimes also described as Louisiana Swamp Blues. One signature element of his music is the dobro, which has also been used for this several songs of this album.

 

Brother Dege – Aurora – Track by Track

The nine track album lasts 42 minutes

1. Aurora

Even though Aurora is roughly three minutes long, I would rather see the track has some sort of atmospheric, instrumental intro. You feel the Mid-West even though the title track rather reminds me of country music than of blues sounds.

2. Where The Black Flowers Grow

Where The Black Flowers Grow is one out of three songs, which have been used to feature the album already. You can still feel the spirit defined by Aurora, but the blues and rock elements play a stronger role in this track as well. Brother Dege’s raspy, intense voice is another key element of this lovely listen.

3. Climbing Ivy

You can write songs about anything finally, I guess. In the third song of Aurora, Brother Dege does so and writes about Climbing Ivy. Overall, the song is slower, but comes with nice groovy episodes. One signature item

4. A Man Needs A Mommy

The following 3:31 minutes are about A Man Needs A Mommy, which is also the opening phrase of the song. Even though I would not fully relate to this statement from my familiar perspective, I enjoy the very personal, also a bit of dramatic atmosphere of the song. Brother Dege just works with a very limited background arrangement, which feels to work out perfectly.

5. Turn Of The Screw

Stomping drums and an energetic guitar theme – after the quiet fourth track, Aurora heads into a very different direction again. Turn Of The Screw is a lovely blues rock with the – to me – most catching chorus of the album. Great instrumental work, great storytelling – the song is my highlight of the album.

6. Ouroboros

Ouroboros is the second instrumental and atmospheric track. This time the song also adds quite a lot of suspense, a thrilling atmosphere. Bass and piano lines are the key contributors.

7. The Devil You Know

I expected the atmosphere caused by Ouroboros, but the song is rather a slow, quiet and emptional. I like the howling steel guitar parts in the background. Overall, the song rather heads towards country and rock music to me.

So come my baby
All of the world’s so crazy, I know
Yeah, I know
This time I’m breaking
I don’t want to be crazy, alone
With the devil you know
The devil you know

8. Loser’s Blues

The next four minutes of the album are dedicated to the Loser’s Blues. The song shows a clear blues rock attitude and has a beautiful presence. Fans of the genre will definitely love it.

9. The Longing

I stated that the album is overall 42 minutes. However, none of the eight songs so far had a really epic duration. Most of them were between three and four minutes. The Longing presents in a very different format. Brother Dege grants himself over twelve minutes for the final song. The song feels like a long story told in different episodes with their own atmosphere. There are even some complete breaks in it. The sound is magical, but I felt that the track would have been even more catching and striking if it was in the range of some ten minutes.

 

 

Brother Dege – Aurora – Spotify

Here is the album on Spotify:

 

Brother Dege – Aurora – My View

Aurora is a lovely album with great stories and a lot of good atmosphere. Brother Dege presents nine really entertaining tracks, for rather short instrumentals to the theatric chucker-out. That leads to a really entertaining listen.

Favorite Song: Turn Of The Screw

 

 

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