Technology has fucked up a lot of things for a lot of people, and if there’s even an iota of predictive quality to Black Mirror or the Terminator franchise, the worst is on its way. In the meantime, Tim Jenkins and Tom Crandles of Au.Ra remind us to be grateful for technology’s practical side. With the pair split between Australia and the U.K., Au.Ra attempts to shake shoegaze’s tendency toward copycat morbidity by adding dub, cyber-synth (“Pulse”), industrial noise (“Blue Chip”) and new wave/goth (“Black Hole”) to walls of guitars indebted to Ride and My Bloody Valentine. The dual vocals stand out as a sore point for their tendency to moan, whine and churlishly ignore the concept of staying in key, and the drum machine is programmed merely as a timekeeping measure. With some trans-global gelling and maybe the addition of living, breathing band members, Au.Ra might not be so bleak.
—Kevin Stewart-Panko
