Earth-shattering sounds from AURORA in ‘The Gods We Can Touch’
Photo by Wendy Wei
Welcome to the album of the gods. Norwegian singer-songwriter AURORA explores all our emotions in her first album of the year. A track listing is below with details of each song and what listeners can expect from them.
This is an intro song, using AURORA’s lilting voice to bring listeners to the forefront of the album.
This song is beautiful. The lyrics discuss the pleasure of love, but also the pain. The line, “You’re a part of the dawn where the light comes from the dark,” evokes a sense of the soul. The song talks to the listener by speaking to the strength of love and pain. We get a sense of how we should feel: bright and happy.
The song is a collaboration with Pomme, a French singer-songwriter. The song also has French lyrics. It is a perfect match with AURORA’s lines, because it pairs the French and English lyrics, giving the end of the song a different sound.
This song is reminiscent of 1980s synth-pop. AURORA continues to talk about love and her acceptance of it. While she understands that she is not perfect, she knows that she is still deserving of love.
A pop song, the beat of this track explores healing your heartache by running away from an old lover. Old flames die here. It is the first song on the album that expresses a rejection of love and embrace of individuality.
AURORA talks of begging her lover for peace, love and quiet in this song. She forgives her lover for the pain they have caused her in love, saying, “You never meant for love to hurt for me.” However, she struggles to balance feelings of love with feelings of pain.
This song is more interesting compared to the previous tracks. It evokes a questioning of God, including a discussion of why love and life hurt. There is a portrayal of this pain that leads to begging for a release from suffering.
A folk song, this expresses the need for life and existing beyond any need for work. Romance is stated as the “heart of life.”
The song discusses the freedom of love and the benefits of living freely. The song also explores the fall and the aftermath as “stealing from the trees of Eden,” detailing the benefits of living as humans do now with freedom and the capacity to innovate.
This song talks about the love that left, but AURORA dances and has accepted that the relationship has ended.
This song brings in life itself, including the forming of humans in the womb. Releasing anxiety, AURORA beckons the listener to breathe, calm down and understand that, although the storm of anxiety is roaring, we can be calm.
Evokes synth-pop and explores lovers experiencing passion. Just for a moment, the lovers can have fun, but it won’t last long.
Explores being swooned by someone who doesn’t care. AURORA knows there is “no love in the air,” but she is willing to sacrifice this for company.
This is a song about feminine power: “What will you do when she takes your throne?” Invoking Artemis, the goddess of wolf animals, AURORA explores the feminine taking charge of the masculine.
AURORA speaks to her love and discusses the nature of a bond between lovers. “The flesh in the fruit and the blood in the wine” evokes biblical themes, while exploring the connection between two people bonded by love.
This song begs for a lover to come back. AURORA is hopeful that her lover will return to her. This song can express grief and loss in many different ways: “But if I touch you, would you feel it there?” and “Could I trust love even if I’m scared?” These lyrics can be interpreted in many different ways.
A Little Place Called The Moon
This song is the final song of the album. It ends with lilting sounds and a return to the night. The album ends well, as the moon is symbolic of enlightenment and the dark side of nature.
AURORA’s ‘The Gods We Can Touch’ is available on all streaming services and in stores.
