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Novembers Doom
Amid Its Hallowed Mirth
(Avantgarde Music - 1995)
I'm skeptical when it comes to American doom metal. This debut by Novembers Doom is an obvious clone of Paradise Lost (Gothic & Lost Paradise era) from the first riff. It is doomdeath with that unique Paradise Lost groaning gothic dissonant guitar sound and identical harsh growling vocals, as well as purposely off-tune clean vocals. Except that it's a clone, and although the growl is very very good, the weaker clean vocals can't quite pull it off (who can pull off Nick Holmes's unique delivery?). These bad clean vocals detract. The second track also introduces female soprano vocals (Gothic-era Paradise Lost), but these sometimes go off-tune as well. These clean vocals are thankfully used very sparingly in the album though. The low-tuned guitars roar in solemn, heavy riffs, the vocals growl nicely. Unfortunately, they forgot to clone some of the best aspects of Paradise Lost: The dynamic tempos, and the wailing powerful dissonant guitars and solos that made each early Paradise Lost song a unique gothic creation. This stuff here is pretty good for a couple of tracks, but then suffers from sameness: The same funeral tempo that drifts from slower to slow, and similar heavy riffing throughout without even a solo. So when I say doomdeath, I only mean that the vocals are death growls, but the tempo, barring one faster short death metal segment, is not a hybrid. A mediocre release that desperately needed more than this basic doom sound, or some variety
Of Sculptured Ivy and Stone Flowers
(Martyr Music Group - 1999)
If the first album screamed early Paradise Lost, this one (after a long four-year gap) sounds like they've been listening to Katatonia and My Dying Bride, at least at the start. This more melodic approach works in their favor. But this is only at first, as their sound changes and develops often in this release and they do find their own approach here. Their compositional skills have improved by leaps and bounds though, with a richer use of sounds, and dynamic tempos, using many sounds to create a rich doom album, from doomdeath to many sorrowful acoustic interludes or mood-pieces, to a Black Sabbath-esque heavy track, etc. The female soprano vocals have improved a lot, but the clean male vocals have not and are still quite bad. If the first release suffered from too little variety and dynamism, this one suffers from the opposite problem, and the tracks vary a lot in their quality, approach and mood: The first two and last tracks are really good melodic and dynamic doom metal with very good death growls and female backing vocals, and I would have greatly enjoyed a whole album with this approach. The third track starts similarly, then winds down for a nicely soft sorrowful acoustic second half. But then it's one weak track after another: A female-sung soft-rock song with cheesy male monotone vocals that seems kinda out of place, a plodding clumsily written doom track inspired by My-Dying-Bride that doesn't know what it wants to be, a 3-minute atmospheric industrial track, then another doom track ruined by droning male clean vocals, then another 2-minute acoustic piece of sorrow with pretentious and cheesy monotone male vocals, then the Black Sabbath-esque tune with really off-tune singing clean male vocals. In short, it's safe to say the clean male vocals ruined this one for me. The rest, for the most part, is really good doom-metal, but, unfortunately, the bad outweighs the good.
The Knowing
(Dark Symphonies - 2000)
It's nice to hear a band developing, improving, and ironing out the kinks. Novembers Doom bring it all together for this good release: The dynamics are great, the songs vary in approach but flow nicely from one to another, there is a nice mix of clean, quiet doom, and touches of doomdeath, without letting each one stagnate, the growls are great as always, and the weaker clean male vocals are managed better here or are improved enough to get by: They are often either layered with other vocals, or used for only shorter stretches. The monotone spoken vocals can still get tiresome and pretentious at times (especially on the long 'Aura Blue'), but they have been reduced enough to not get in the way of the enjoyment. The female vocals have been replaced by slightly weaker ones, however, sounding like someone's girlfriend with a good voice rather than the professional vocal from earlier albums. It's the rich music and compositions that are the stars however, together with the great death growls. Standouts: The ten-minute ultra-slow 'Last God' that very nicely manages to stay gripping for its whole length, the 8-minute 'Aura Blue' which doesn't do so well and plods along for most of its length but which ends on a beautifully melancholy piano solo, the brilliantly dissonant and progressive riffing in 'Harmony Divine', and the nicely done groovy, chunky, stoner, Black Sabbath-esque 'In Memories Past'. Not a classic, but lightly recommended nevertheless, and definitely the best of the earlier Novembers Doom while they were still more pure doom metal.
To Welcome the Fade
(Dark Symphonies - 2002)
The influence on this one is definitely Opeth. It is also a more pure doomdeath hybrid release than they ever did, with generally faster-paced tempos, especially in the first half, and heavier use of death growls. It does slow down for the really sad and beautiful second half though. Combined with their recent melodic and dynamic approach to doom metal, this results in a truly superb album. As mentioned, there are so many sounds, arrangements and riffs that I instantly identified with Opeth, that the influence is clear. There are also more modern-sounding alternative-rock sounds that add to the atmosphere and melancholy beauty, but they are used sparingly and judicially, so I welcomed them (think later Katatonia). Other improvements: The new female vocalist has an achingly beautiful and sweet voice, often combined superbly with Kuhr's clean vocals for a great duet, and adding the musicality that his monotone lacks. This fixes the issues with his tiresome monotone in a creative way. Albeit, her vocal lines are somewhat clumsily written in 'Torn' where she duets with Kuhr's death growls. His clean singing voice has actually improved and is somewhat nice here, and the guitars, drums and keyboards are as professional and well integrated as always. So what we have here is a very rich, dynamic doomdeath release with many beautiful and heavy compositions. The sound is unusually melancholy here even for Novembers Doom, and as with the last release, it ends on a bittersweet and beautiful note. Standouts: 'Broken' with beautifully melancholy female vocals, the chanting interlude 'If Forever', the somewhat clunky but pretty ballad 'Torn', and the epic, sad and beautiful masterpiece of a closer 'Dark Fields for Brilliance'. The rest are all solid and enjoyable doomdeath. A strong recommendation for this one.
The Pale Haunt Departure
(The End - 2005)
This is another Novembers Doom album with many different sounds throughout, some of them new. The new sounds include some more commercial-sounding goth/alt rock, as well as a more aggressive mid-paced death. The latter has neither the ponderous, funeral-melodic effect of doom, nor the energy of death metal so it's not the most interesting sound, especially if combined with monotone vocals. The goth-rock elements sound kinda like navel-gazing guitar lines where it's more alt-rock-sounding, slow, sad, melodic guitars rather than heavy doom-metal riffing. Think later Katatonia and some mid-era My Dying Bride, only more American sounding. Some of them even contain catchy choruses and one sounds like a sad Simon & Garfunkel folk tune. This combination of both harder and softer can be quite jarring often on this release, and the song-writing isn't strong on this one as with the previous two albums, so these sounds aren't always well integrated. In other words, whereas previous albums had a wonderful flow and structure and great use of all the various sounds, this one mostly sounds either clunky or plodding. Another change is the increased use of male clean vocals, both singing and monotone, and this has always been by far the weakest aspect of this band. The singing clean vocals are gothic, droning, and wistful, a poor-man's My Dying Bride/Katatonia. True, they have greatly improved, but they are still only good for short segments. The monotone, however, is always monotonous at best, and pretentiously gothic at worst. And they don't use female vocals this time to relieve the gothic monotony. The mixing and mastering are by Dan Swano and James Murphy (Swano will keep working with them for many albums), and the sound is very full and clean. Overall, I was disappointed with this one even after a few listens. 'In the Absence of Grace' stands out with its epic 8-minute length and superb dynamic doomdeath songwriting, and 'The Pale Haunt Departure' is not-bad but simple doomdeath, but the rest of it, given all of the above, plods and drones way too much.
The Novella Reservoir
(The End - 2007)
Novembers Doom always evolve with each album, either introducing new sounds or fine-tuning the last album's sounds, or both. This album is a 'fine-tuning' album. In other words, it's largely the same approach as The Pale Haunt Departure, only with slightly better flowing song-writing, musical focus and energy. But it's not that big an improvement, since the basic sound with all its problems is the same: We now have doomdeath with an emphasis on mid-to-slow-paced death metal, sometimes melodic so that it sounds like early In Flames, with elements of goth-rock, including two goth-rock ballads. The chugging tracks have a good energy this time, but they are too simple, and, as mentioned, they neither have the brutality and pace of death metal, nor the funeral tunes of doom metal, and they don't even have the bark and sharpness of thrash metal, although they are often paced like thrash with death growls. It's basically 'moody death metal' that chugs along with some energy with moody breaks. This mid-paced generic metal could be great if the song-writing were more complex and dynamic, but combined with goth-rock droning choruses, it simply falls flat. The clean vocals are used slightly less on the faster tracks and are layered, which sometimes works pretty well, and on other times it breaks the song. But there are also two long goth-rock tracks (out of 8), one acoustic and cheesy, the other alt-doom-metal, and they both plod and drone thanks to the vocals. The death growls are very good as well, and they are backed by raspy screams more often this time for a Deicide death metal sound. I liked the chugging 'Rain', and the In Flames-esque 'Drown The Inland Mere' with good use of clean vocals, and both 'Dominate The Human Strain' and 'The Novella Reservoir' are just OK, above-average, chugging tracks, but the rest are poor. In summary, some tracks are moderately enjoyable, but overall, I found it mediocre-to-weak.
Into Night's Requiem Infernal
(The End - 2009)
Another improvement and fine-tuning album that takes the sound from the previous two albums and develops it. Except this time the improvements are superb, resulting in the best of the three by far. Once again there is doomdeath with faster-paced death-metal, combined with goth-metal and goth-rock. Except this one has more melody (dark, moody or black) and much more interesting flowing song-writing. It all comes together nicely this time for a death-melodeath-doom-goth metal hybrid. Best of all, the clean vocals which have always been a problem in the past have finally become professional and enjoyable, kudos are deserved for that. He finally has learned to sing and not drone. Now he sounds like either Anathema, My Dying Bride or Pink Floyd and for the first time I actually greatly enjoyed the soft tracks with clean vocals. 'Lazarus Regret' is a more pure death metal track, but concise this time and well done. 'The Fifth Day Of March' and 'When Desperation Fills The Void' are the soft tracks with clean vocals, but, as mentioned, these are very nice this time. The rest of the songs are all quite good hybrid-metal that I enjoyed. This doesn't reach the heights of Knowing/To Welcome the Fade, since this one chugs more than it sings and the tunes aren't that memorable as on those albums, but it's by far the best of the last three and it comes lightly recommended. The reviews that called this the worst of the lot obviously don't know what they are talking about.
Aphotic
(The End - 2011)
Although people like to over-compare this band to Opeth just because they combine genres and sounds in each track and shift often to softer musical passages, as an Opeth fan I must declare that I only rarely hear Opeth here. However, it did happen prominently in 'To Welcome the Fade', and this album hit me in a similar way (is the near-anagram in the title a coincidence?). Of course this only happens on some tracks and segments, and Novembers Doom still maintain their own sound, especially when they play doom or gothic metal, and obviously we are talking about earlier Opeth, not the 70s-prog-rock Opeth. The clean vocals really sound like My Dying Bride now though, so it's interesting to hear an Opeth/My Dying Bride hybrid sometimes. With that out of the way, it's back to more progressive, complex, and even experimental arrangements here, and they largely drop the straight-forward chugging death-metal elements of the past three albums. This one goes for an undefinable dark metal hybrid with tightly integrated sounds. Most of it works really nicely, some of the musical phrasing and vocal lines can get a little bit odd, but it's a grower. It contains one very poor track, however. There is also a violin on two tracks, except that it's terribly off-tune on the aforementioned track. The first two tracks are superbly enjoyable, slightly progressive dark metal masterpieces, the third is pretty good doom metal with harsh vocals, and then we get: 'What Could Have Been' a duet acoustic sad number with Anneke from The Gathering and a violin, but it's weakly written with repetitive and clunky vocal lines, bad male vocals and off-tune violin. They should have used her for a much heavier track and this track needed more work. Then there's a quite enjoyable complex two-parter ('Of Age and Origin') with a more melodic goth sound. Then a slightly above-average track ('Six Sides') that starts with a strong riff but which has a weak chorus, although it develops and it grows on you somewhat. And, finally, a long Moonspell-esque track with a nicely soft beginning, which doesn't really take off later as expected, but it's another grower and is quite enjoyable. Overall, I thought the good outweighed the weak and enjoyed most of it even in an early impression. But after I gave this album time to grow, this turned out to be amongst their best work, and it's therefore a solid recommendation, as long as one can skip 'What Could Have Been' that is.
Bled White
(The End - 2014)
Novembers Doom continue the renewed trend from the previous album of writing more experimental, dissonant musical phrases and riffs, giving their 'dark metal' music a more progressive sound, but think Nevermore and Queensryche instead of Opeth for this album. On this album, this progressive sound been incorporated and developed into something musically comfortable and well integrated. The big problem with this album, however, is that it shifts between too many different genres and approaches, from death and doomdeath to progressive later-day Queensryche heavy-metal, to Moonspell-esque goth-metal, to goth-rock, and some of the sounds or vocals sound a bit too commercial especially amidst the death metal. So in between the good tracks and segments, there are many less enjoyable ones, and the genre-salad can be quite jarring this time. It does have good heavy-metal guitar solos though, and about 5 good tracks (out of 11). The first two tracks are all very good Nevermore-inspired dark gothic/death/doom metal. 'Just Breathe' sees Novembers Doom and Kuhr try something new beyond their comfort zone with moody gothic sounds and different, more emotional delicate clean vocals, combining it with their usual doom metal without letting the song-writing stagnate, and the result is pretty good. Then comes a shift to layered low and high clean vocals reminiscent of Queensryche with a bit of Pink Floyd. In 'Unrest' this is used well and it is a good song. 'The Memory Room', however is overlong and plodding and over-uses this vocal, although it could have been good as a 3-4 minute track. It's a mixture of Queensryche and Moonspell, with a sudden snippet of death growl in the middle, if you can imagine that. The the album suddenly veers to simple Deicide-esque death metal in between which is very jarring. Then there's the dull 'Clear' and the mediocre 'The Grand Circle' which both drone for far too long with over-use of the layered monotone vocals. 'Animus' is the sole strong and energetic doomdeath track in the second half of the album amidst all the gothic crooning and droning. And finally there's 'The Silent Dark', yet another plodding 'atmospheric' 9 minute repetitive soft track with too much use of dull goth clean vocals and not enough song. In summary, the album is too long at 70 minutes with too many different sounds, and it's a very mixed bag with a distinct split in quality for the first and second halves. Whether the good outweighs the bad is up to you. I didn't like enough of it.
Hamartia
(The End - 2017)
I think it's safe to say by now that my primary problem with Novembers Doom releases since the beginning has always been the male clean vocals which alternatively improve or decline, but which have always been the Achilles Heel. Many of their albums feature these droning clean vocals that sound monotonous or which plod along because Ruhr sounds like he is using about five notes for the whole song or stiffly pronouncing each clipped word with pauses between each note instead of actually... singing. These gothic-sounding near-chants may work for short interludes in the middle of a song for adding to the mood, but not when over-used. This album once again plods and drones thank to over-use of monotonous vocals. The timbre of the voice is very reminiscent of Anathema, the lower vocals bring to mind Moonspell. But the way he uses it lacks a musical quality, as explained. Kuhr's daughter provides very welcome backing vocals on three tracks, greatly helping his drone. His great death growls are rarely used this time. Otherwise, once again we get a hybrid doom-goth-death metal release, and the song-writing isn't bad, but the vocals keep getting in the way of my enjoyment. Then again, this album is also much lighter, the primary sound being gothic heavy metal and goth-rock. 'Devil's Light' opens the album with death metal along with a black metal sound that we heard sometimes in previous releases, but it's much more black here thanks to the raspy layered vocals and keyboards. But it still has a goth-metal chorus and 'Apostasy' is similarly 'death-goth'. 'Zephyr' is a good track with a nice flow, energy and combination of vocals. 'Borderline' features actual nice singing which we heard in 'Into Night's Requiem Infernal' and which disappeared for some reason since then. But the song itself seems influenced by modern moody pop-rock and is highly uninteresting for its whole 9-minute length. The rest of the tracks are uninspired plodding goth. Overall this definitely seems to be the most tired and uninspired release by this band. Besides one or two tracks, I didn't get into it at all.
Nephilim Grove
(Prophecy - 2019)
This release on a new label is an album of two parts in terms of quality. For the first three tracks it's back to the good progressive Opeth/Nevermore sounds of Bled White and Aphotic to create another rich doom-goth-death hybrid. The clean vocals are back to being pretty good, either by singing properly, or by being used for shorter segments only. Their hybrid songs are so much better when the chorus is a death growl and the clean goth vocals are used only for the build-up. And the music here develops and soars, rather than just maintaining a slow gothic pace. There are also some backing harsh male vocals that sound like Rob Zombie. But then its all downhill from there: 'What We Become' is a dull plodding and clunky romantic goth-song with cheesy lyrics that sounds like the bad material from 'Hamartia'. 'Adagio' is a dull plodding song as well as an awkward composition, where the only good part is the solo. 'Black Light' is a fast death metal track but the song-writing needs help where the parts don't come together at all and the chorus is extremely awkward sounding. And then it's similar until the end of the album with poorly written compositions that try to be different and complex but are never enjoyable. It's a bad combination of poor 'progressive' song-writing and plodding goth-death-metal with too much clean droning vocals or other bad uses of vocals. The aggressive dark metal mixed with dreamy droning pop-goth vocals simply doesn't work here. And, worse, the song-writing simply doesn't have a musical grasp of the song as a whole, writing 'different'-sounding riffs and phrases and trying to be interesting, but without creating a good song and development. In other words, they're doing 'prog' but losing the song. The past two or three albums sound like they don't know what they are doing anymore, despite a couple of good tracks on each release.
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