Review Summary: A chaotic, atmospherically sprawling, melodic list of ingredients cooked up into a stunning debut from progressive-death/doomers Novembre.
Novembre’s 2002 offering,
Dreams D’Azur (a re-working of this, the band’s 1994 debut
Wish I could Dream It Again…) was worthy of re-release, though its recognition as another studio outing is a little misplaced. It might seem redundant to put this album into the database and review it, but since it was the band’s debut and there are some tracks here that didn’t find their way to
Dreams D’Azur it doesn’t seem all together pointless. Hailing from Italy,
Novembre began as a relatively straight up death metal band, under a few monikers, before creating a specific niche that would become signature to the band’s sound. After re-tooling their format the band embarked into the studio to record
Wish I Could Dream It Again… and would immediately start making waves within the metal community. The result is a stunning take on progressive death/doom metal, putting a variety of spins on varying influences to create something rather unique.
The album’s opener,
Dream of the Old Boats sets a pretty impressive pace for this debut.
Novembre’s ability to blend a lush atmospheric backdrop with a forefront of hard and graceful melodies is pretty recognisable here, and definitely makes for an interesting listen. There is definitely a lot going on with this band’s music, for the most part coming at you on various levels with hurricane force. Then, like a shining ray of light through that storm, elements of progressive rock and the calmer side of melodic death metal creep in. It is here that
Novembre really show the diversity of their abilities.
Novembre/Its Blood is a prime example of the interplay between styles that the band would further develop on later releases. The album tends to split several of its tracks into two separate pieces within one song. This can be a bit frustrating with the bands progressive nature and tendency to run a myriad of musical options through the same track. There is a brief break from the truly experimental and progressive tones of the album, namely in straightforward tracks like
Night/At Once and
Let Me Hate, both still grasping to the bands death metal roots. The band’s use of keys keeps the album rolling, even if it does take the tempo down a few notches at times: the atmospheric beauty it creates is more than compensating to
Novembre’s sound. From this point on, the disc starts to mould and shape the sound they would use for future albums, without losing much reliance on the death metal qualities.
The Music is a highlight on this album, maintaining a pretty steady gallop after leaving the gothic-influenced vocals behind. The track progresses into a pretty thrashy death metal song, with some decent growls coming from front man Carmelo Orlando. Orlando’s clean vocals are in need of some obvious work here, as his wailing, gloomy tone in the former half of
Nostalgia/Its Gaze are horrendous. The latter part of the track begins with an average death metal arrangement, a clumsy attempt at shredding, meanders to a small acoustic section, then after a few minutes of silence and background noise it repeats the mundane death riff. This is really the weakest spot on an album that doesn’t have too many, so that should bode well for potential listeners.
Lighthouse Tales is another complex arrangement from these guys, a track that showcases things to come more than shining a light on the bands current (at the time of recording) format.
Whether it comes in the form of psychedelic tinges on
The White Eyed, chaotic and sporadic death metal blasts on
Neanderthal Sands, the simple acoustic and spoken word finale of
Cristal or caught some where in between it all, this is good music. Novembre should even appeal to those who aren’t a big fan of the metal genre or the rough death growls it can produce, since much of those elements were dropped after the bands first few CD’s and never really took the forefront of Novembre’s music anyway. The quality of musicianship seems to really draw me in – nothing over the top, but there’s definitely talent there. This album is probably the best experience for fans of the death metal side of their music, as these elements wouldn’t fully resurface until 2007’s
The Blue. This is a pretty damn solid debut for a band who were just beginning to forge their craft, and should be checked out at least by fans of progressive metal music.
A Few Standouts: (though this album is pretty enjoyable as a whole)
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Dream of the Old Boats
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The Music
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Novembre/Its Blood
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Lighthouse Tale
