Auri - 2025 - III. Candles & Beginnings

(55:26; Nuclear Blast)






















Right after completing Nightwish’s 2024 album ‘Yesterwynde’, the songwriting for the third chapter in Auri’s musical adventures started, with Troy Donockley writing in Yorkshire and Tuomas Holopainen and his wife, singer Johanna Kurkela, working their creative magic in Kitee, Finland. As soon as I started playing this the name of one band came straight to mind, and it stuck there the more I listened to this, and while many people will be coming to this album due to the Nightwish links, to fully understand this one needs to go back more than 40 years to when a young Troy was a key member of the incredible folk rock band Iona. They never gained the huge commercial acclaim they so richly deserved, but they left behind a rich legacy, and there is no doubt that Auri have taken huge swathes of that and combined it with some Nightwish tendencies to create something which is hauntingly beautiful and atmospheric, although at times it has a backbone of solid iron.

Troy and Tuomas have been working together for years, but Nightwish is very much Holopainen’s band, and he provides all their material, and this feels much more like a creative coming together from the three, with everyone having their part to play. Highly Celtic influenced, this is prog folk which is coming to a much wider audience than one would normally expect due to who is involved, and somehow, I cannot see Nuclear Blast normally having a band like this on their roster, but there is no doubt that it is an absolute delight. It is very much an album to be played on headphones when one wants to relax and be taken into a magical world. A few additional musicians are utilised, but sparingly and the result is something very special indeed, with Johanna’s clear vocals being the guide and as we walk through the multiple layers and delight in the world being made clear to us.

It does not contain the bombast of Nightwish, so for those expecting more of that style then look elsewhere, but for those who enjoy the Celtic folk of the likes of Iona then this is very special indeed. 

Kev Rowland, November 2025

Links:
https://www.facebook.com/AURlband/
https://www.nuclearblast.com/

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