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Novembers Doom: Into night's requiem infernal

16/09/09 || Euthanatos

There has always been a little controversy on whether Novembers Doom has an apostrophe or not in its name. For the record, no, it doesn’t. Why? I don’t know. Anyway, after the butt-fuckingly good “The Novella Reservoir”, which was so good we reviewed it here not once, but twice, we (as in me) were all highly eager to listen to the new one.

Naturally, as most albums following a masterpiece do, it disappoints. Is it a terribly lame excuse for an album, though? No, not at all! It’s still a good record, worthy of being ranked amongst the better ones by Novembers Doom, as well as one of the more decent efforts released on the doom scene this year. It’s just not Novella-good. What does that even mean? Well, let’s see.

For starters, for the first time since what seems like forever, I ‘m not impressed by Kuhr’s vocals. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just not “Whoa! Paul Kuhr, I want to have his babies”. I do like his work on “A Eulogy for the Living Lost”, “The Fifth Day of March” and “I Hurt Those I Adore” (which, incidentally, are the best tracks on the album), but other than those moments, I found it boring and repetitive. Nothing special at all. Either he’s getting old, or I’m getting old and also used to him.

And while I commend the band for not trying to emulate or repeat the sound from “The Novella Reservoir”, once again doing something pretty different for a new album, this requiem here just doesn’t pack as much a punch as the previous record. It’s a lot mellower, albeit still aggressive, and I don’t particularly like the slower pace. Sure, it works out great in stuff like “The Fifth Day of March”, which will immediately remind you of Opeth and Pink Floyd (at least it should, if you have half a brain and haven’t been living under a rock), but more often than not I got bored.

And that’s a terrible thing, really, because Novembers is such a great and unique band. On the bright side, as I’ve mentioned before, they strive to make something original, and they do succeed, but, again, as I’ve mentioned before, it falls short in comparison to the predecessor. Or predecessors, as “The Pale Haunt Departure” was also a lot cooler. Maybe we should have reviewed that one, instead of doing Novella twice. Yeah, we’re not that bright. At least we look good, though!

I feel as if I’m going round in circles. Again, not a good thing, and it tends to happen when you listen to an album time and time again and you just don’t “feel it”. Maybe I should have pushed this album away and let someone else review it. Maybe I’ll just post it and then someone will come along and review it as well. Hell, it happened before, right? Or maybe this is just my way of saying, “hey, fuckers, this is a good Novembers Doom album, it’s not going to blow your mind, it’s not the best album of the year either, but it has some good tunes”. I do like Chris Djuricic and Dan Swanö‘s work on producing and mixing, let that be noted. Nice work, gentlemen.

The cover: Now this is really good. As usual, Novembers Doom delivers with their covers, some beautiful imagery that connects with the music.

Information
Released: 2009
Label: The End Records
Website: www.novembersdoom.com
Band
Paul Kuhr: vocals
Vito Marchese: guitars
Lawrence Roberts: guitars
Chris Djuricic: bass
Sasha Horn: drums

Tracklist
01. Into Night’s Requiem Infernal
02. Eulogy for the Living Lost
03. Empathy’s Greed
04. The Fifth Day of March
05. Lazarus Regret
06. I Hurt Those I Adore
07. The Harlots Lie
08. When Desperation Fills the Void

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