Malignant Aura On Tour To Support New Album ‘Where All Of Worth Comes To Wither’

‘We usually do four song sets. This one will be a little bit special and we’ll do five!’

Malignant Aura, one of Australia’s premium death metal bands, are not joking about their upcoming setlist for the tour in support of new album Where All Of Worth Comes To Wither. A band take takes you into other realms with epic sonic journeys, are represented by guitarist Chris Clark and bassist Jonathan Ennis to discuss the new album and five date tour across the east coast of Australia this April.

‘We’re doing the whole album for this performance minus the introduction track, which is a good track, but also you can’t just tack on a four-minute track for the shit of it. So yeah, we tagged that out and we’re playing an old banger instead!’

The follow up to 2022’s Abysmal Misfortune Is Draped Upon Me, landed in January and is a forty five minute, five track ride through dark emotions, blast beats and songs titles as long as the songs themselves, drawn from vocalist Tim Smith’s fervent imagination as Jonathan explains.

Jonathan: ‘He usually comes with a preempted idea as to what the lyrics are and what the thematics of the songs are. When it comes to crunch time, it’s just the artistry of making what he’s got work towards different songs. So, Chris will write what he writes, and then that’ll merge with us in the jam space to become something. Then Tim will come in throughout that, with this lyric structure fitting that riff structure a bit better.’

Chris: ‘He’s very much a poet and a lot of it comes from experiences and personal things then conveying that in a poetic way. That’s why these song titles are longer because he’s trying to evoke a very specific type of feeling, which definitely comes out of the tracks.’

Jonathan: ‘He does a really good job of it too, because, especially with album one and the exception of ‘Malignant Aura’, the self-titled track, there’s a theme that he goes through for the whole album. I don’t know if many of our listeners out there have actually thought about the lyrical content, but it does tell a story and the story is very morose. It’s very macabre and it ends in a very depressing way.’

That’s the first album. What about the second album?

Chris: ‘It’s definitely a journey through the darker side of human experience more than anything else. In a lyrical way, they might be abstract, but actually they’re grounded in lived experiences, and they’re meant to be this journey through dark human experience more than anything else.’

The five-date tour starts in Adelaide on April 2, and runs through Hobart, Melbourne, Sydney and finishes in Brisbane with stellar support from bands like Carcinoid and Mammon’s Throne. For the inquisitive though, what can you expect from the shows?

Chris: ‘Expect sadness, expect darkness and crushing death metal moments. One of the biggest things that is quite unique about us is that we have a gong on stage, which is very evocative. It’s used a lot by Tim during our tracks, but we also have very theatrical moments and very sad moments as well. It’s meant to bring the music to life and connect with the audience.’

Jonathan: ‘We take the emotions of the music quite seriously and the stage presence. You want people to gel into that performance. You don’t want to distract them from what you’re trying to put forward to them. You don’t want to reduce the efficiency of what’s being put forward to them. You want the people to be immersed in what you’re trying to put forward. It takes a bit of effort because I’m a very smiley guy, but also it’s a part of what you want to put forward.’

Chris: ‘All that being said, we have blast beats, we have a lot of death metal moments, and we have a lot of head banging as well. We are still a death metal band and we still love dumb death metal riffs, so they’re in there!’

Chris: ‘Our tracks really go through movements. We have these very sad moments, which will then pick up into more triumphant sections. I remember someone in an interview previously was saying that our music somehow pulls you down into almost a bitter sadness, but then you feel triumphant at the end. We try to create this atmosphere and tell this story the whole time. That’s why we have songs that go for 13 minutes because it’s a real journey from start to end.’

Jonathan: ‘Languishing In the Perpetual Mire’ especially is a very special journey. It’s hate-filled, it’s sad, it’s off-kilter, and it resolves in a way that is … Yeah, I don’t know. I really like playing it. And that one in particular for me is special. It’s very humbling to be able to be a part of a musical project where you can have that outlet musically for something that is that harrowing and then share that with other people.’

Along on the journey for the first three shows are Carcinoid, the final two Mammon’s Throne.

Chris: ‘Carcinoid are a brilliant band, awesome band. We have been huge fans of Carcinoid for a long time. We feel like our two styles come together well where we have these really dumb death doom moments, these really heavy death metal parts, and also they’re just fantastic people! We get along with them really well. When we launched our first album, we played many shows with them as well. So, it’s really cool to actually come along again on the second album launch with those guys. I think literally their last Adelaide show was our album launch as well. So, it’s really cool to do the same line-up again.’

‘Then the Sydney and Brisbane shows, we have Mammon’s Thrown along for the gigs. Those guys have just released an album as well. It’s fantastic. It’s a lot more classic doom, but it’s absolutely brilliant. It’s much more Peaceville style doom, which we have a lot of influences from. Those guys rule, their fans seem to be our fans and vice versa. They’re fantastic guys and we love the album, we love the band and we want to support them as well.’

Interview By Iain McCallum

Catch Malignant Aura on the following dates, tickets HERE…