Review Summary: Don’t overthink it. Just let it wash over you.
The key to embracing
Home, the debut album from Canadian post-black metal band Numenorean, is to not overanalyze it. Believe me, this is not something I normally advocate when engaging with any media. Understanding the cultural impact (positive or otherwise) of any given work of art is important, and lazy, uninformed audiences make for lazy, uninformed art. And while
Home is certainly enjoyable no matter how you choose to take it in, it also contains a few flaws that warrant attention. First, Numenorean’s guitar tone and clean/distorted dynamics are eerily reminiscent of a certain band that garnered a lot of positive critical response back in 2013 for their blend of black metal and post-rock, and it would be difficult to disagree with anyone who argues that Numenorean don’t bring anything new to the post-black metal table. Second, the overarching lyrical theme of the album, which is described in the liner notes, is, shall we say, ill-conceived. (Apparently that dead child on the cover is lucky because she doesn’t have to experience the pain of adulthood? Sure.) But while I’m not advising that anyone completely ignore those faults, fixating on them short-changes one important fact.
Home is absolutely gorgeous.
From the first guitar notes of the title track to the last fading moments of “Laid Down,”
Home is a beautifully emotive musical journey. Serene passages of quietly plucked guitars explode into urgent rushes of pounding drums and heartbreaking chords. Swirling maelstroms of blast beats and guitar tremolos play out like harrowed cries of desperation, and then melt into codas of defeated despair. These shifts are often abrupt and sometimes surprising, but somehow they always feel completely natural, even inevitable. If you want to apply an analytic eye to
Home, it provides plenty to pick apart. But if you let it wash over you and feel all that it wants to make you feel, then godd
amn will it make you feel.
