Novembers Doom
To Welcome the Fade

Life is a long lesson in humility. (James Matthew Barrie) 

 When in life every form of satisfaction for what one does fades away, when everything seems in vain because it is understood that everything in human existence is destined to disappear quickly; the inability to savor fleeting moments of joy, being unable to escape from the sadness and boredom that afflict us and govern the mind. The shame deriving from not being able to make it, from not being able to overcome the obstacles that arise in one's life.

All these anxieties and emotions lead to defeat, the supreme nemesis of every living being, who during life tries in every way to overcome it, never succeeding. This develops a feeling of despair and anger, which often only makes the many dark moments encountered during one's existence even darker.

Despair and anger. This is the mixture that fuels the music of the Americans Novembers Doom, a band born in 1989 in Chicago and dedicated to excellent and intelligent Death Metal with Doom influences.

A progressive Death Metal, even though it is far from the Opethian school, that marries dreamy rhythms, where the guitars weave katatonic-inspired webs and the beautiful growl of the singer gives way to a clean and sad voice. It is in these small islands of tranquility and hope, where a female voice occasionally appears, that one can experience the most pathos-rich moments of the entire album. 

 The album opens with "Not The Strong", an angry song where the protagonist confesses to having a secret, which has conditioned his entire existence and slowly leads him to defeat. In "Torn" it is the voice of singer Nora O'Conner that shapes the atmosphere of bleak desolation, the male voice joins her only later to then explode with the growl. The lyrics of this song are truly beautiful. Torn represents the protagonist's soul, which dialogues with Life (female voice) urging it to continue its existence and with Death (growl voice) encouraging the soul to surrender and let itself die to reach truth and resolution of its own pains. The last to speak is Life, which promises the soul moments of joy: "You deserve more than this/ Your savior has come/ A strong soul to carry on/ To take you home". The song ends like this, before the soul expresses itself, leaving it up to the listener to close the story. It arrives at the penultimate song "Dreams To Follow", an instrumental (played on the piano) that introduces the wonderful arpeggios of "Dark Fields for Brilliance", a song that tells of a walk in the darkness in the darkest moments, where the world has collapsed on top and where life passes before the eyes as an endless sequence of errors and defeats.

 In any case, the album is not perfect. The fifty minutes of music pass rather quickly, the guitar parts are of excellent level, the singer's voice is very expressive but the tracks are very (too?) similar to each other, thus giving the work an unexceptional longevity.

 The rating would be a 3.5, which I round up to four for the splendid lyrics of the songs, always very concrete and free from metaphors (not entirely usual in the genre). My advice is to get it only if you are lovers of certain sounds, for pioneers of the genre I instead recommend the next album "The Pale Haunt Departure".

 Rating 72/100