Materia

Novembre have created another stunning masterpiece here, adding to the previous three, while being a bit different from their previous releases. The most distinct change is perhaps there are very little growling vocals here. I have always liked Carmello Orlando's growling vocals, but Novembre has always seemed like a band that would eventually stray away from that. His clean vocals are so good that they really need to be used more, and they can be very diverse in themselves. There are many self-harmonizations with overdub, and everything from soft, heartfelt lulling, like in the middle portion of "Memoria Stoica" and in "Geppetto," to incredibly powerful, emotional singing, such as the chorus in "Comedia," the beginning of "Aquamarine," and in "The Promise." Also, there are many more lyrics in Italian than ever before. I really love when the lyrics are in Italian, bands should sing in their native tongue more often, it seems more authentic.

Not only have growling vocals somewhat vanished, but the album as a whole isn't quite as heavy as previous releases. There are many acoustic-driven parts, especially many intros to songs such as "Reason," "Jules," "Geppetto," and many melodies reminiscent of the vast Italian countryside.

The amazing melodies of the band still live on, of course, like the mini-solo in "Aquamarine," the sudden, intimidating riff in "Geppetto," the melodic, unforgettable solo in "Comedia" and also the heart-pounding intro to it, the acoustic-atop-electric melodies in "Reason," among countless others.

The album's cover song is "The Promise," originally by Duran Duran. This song fits perfectly with the flow of the rest of the album, despite having an electronic-like melody hidden in the background. Most likely, if you didn't know the original song like me, you would have never guessed it's a cover song. This may even be my favorite song on the album, of course, I say that about almost every song here when it's playing.

The songwriting might not be quite as "progressive" as say Novembrine Waltz, the songs don't quite explore a thousand different ideas. I'm not quite sure if that's why I still like NW better. Maybe they've improved their songwriting so it's not so all-over-the-place, but, I never really thought NW was like that. The songs still go from heavy to soft parts sometimes very suddenly, but they seem to flow much better and keep the same overall theme more often.

Again, Novembre has impressed me more than I would have ever thought, and this album has spawned several more countless classics for the band. They're making quite a name for themselves as some of today's finest musicians. As of 2018, I would say this is still my third favorite album of theirs, behind Novembrine Waltz and Dreams D’Azur.

The Italian dark metal group Novembre has never been known for any bone-crushing heaviness, but their first bigger label album 'Materia' would certainly show the band go down a more melodic route than ever. From the same record company that hosts such legendary atmospheric acts as Katatonia, Novembre is in good company with Peaceville, and it has certainly been reflected in their sound. At the sacrifice of vitality and intensity in their sound, Novembre has made a noble choice to take things in a more harmonious direction, but the deep sense of loss and melancholy in the band's formula is stronger than ever.

From the saddening opener 'Verne' onwards, Novembre asserts themselves as a very vocal-centric act. Singer Carmelo Orlando's voice very important both in the songwriting as well as the production mix, and the music therefore relies heavily on his delivery. While evidently not a technically skilled singer in terms of range, Orlando's voice does carry a very distinct tone to it, and an ability to transmit emotion that works beautifully for the bands sound. The musicianship here is rarely dependent on technicality; the instruments instead are focused on emotional dynamic and the context of the songs. That being said, the drums

'Materia' starts off excellently. With absolutely majestic tracks as the hymnal 'Verne', the dynamic 'Reason' and the catchy 'Aquamarine', the first half of the album is real gold. The highlight of the album here however is none other than 'Jules', which is easily the best composed and performed track here. Beginning with an exotic acoustic guitar strum, the piece quickly builds into a grief-ridden riff and strong melodies from Carmelo. Had every track on the album reached this level of strength, I would have no problem deeming 'Materia' a masterpiece. Not all is such gold however.

The second half does take a turn for the worse. While never bad by any measure, it feels as if the same melodic tricks and ideas are being reprised and recycled for a second side, with slight tweaks in the formula. Simply, the melodies here feel less striking than they are in the first half, although a few such as the title track and 'Nothijingrad' certainly keep the album worth listening to all the way through, regardless of the sameness of the sound throughout.

A great album, with a convincing sound from these Italian metallers. Here, the band shows they can write some great music and make a fitting performance to back it up, but the consistency of the work does leave something missing.

Carmelo Orlando

Now let me start off by saying this isn’t typical Novembre, as they utilize much less harsh vocals and put a great emphasis on doom and clean vocals. I’d likely go just as gay for Carmelo on another later release, but this one just caresses my soul (and other things). The production should be knighted on its own, as it gives the all the instruments such power and vigor that it would have toppled Italy’s fascist regime decades ago.

Every song is a well-crafted doom masterpiece, with melancholy dabbed to highly dream-like harmony. The guitars act like a wall of sound when the vocals are in the forefront, but when the vocals play the melody, the riffs found within are worthy of a party in a shanty factory, with Messiah Marcolin riding in with the booze on his forklift of doom. The overall mood of the album is very sad, dreary, somber, and sullen. If I were to cry, it’d be in Carmelo’s arms.

Let’s anallyze the second track “Memoria Stoica/Vetro” for all it’s worth. The clean interlude you’ll find all over as the signature lead pitch, with the bass serving as a constant grumble of power that just sounds so comforting. The drums here are as they are throughout the album: lively, booming, accurate, and rhythmic – no tin bullshit. The charging tempo of the guitar accompanies a gripping vocal performance meant to capture the true feeling of gloom and loss. If this is what people call nasally, then I don’t think pipe cleaning will be necessary.

Acoustics are used less so on Materia as opposed to clean guitars, but they aren’t left out for good. They’re inclusion helps, but by no means does it stand out. What does stand out to is that cover song of Arcadia’s “The Promise.” There’s so much heart and vigor behind it, especially in the vocals, that it’s better than sex. Not that I’d pass it sex up for the song, but I’d call it much better than the original.

Another trait of this album I’d like to call out which first made a statement on Novembrine Waltz, is that this album doesn’t have any obligatory single. Every song is special in its own way, be it a stellar vocal piece or an exemplary instrumental cohesion. Personal favorites of mine that I’d say are well worth the love are “Memoria Stoica/Vetro,” “Jules,” “The Promise,” and “Nothijngrad” – if you’re a newcomer who wants to hit on this album, try those first.

But when it comes to Carmelo, fuck off, he’s all mine. The atmosphere he creates is that of a wet dream, with the Mediterranean Sea itself in his tropical, blue eyes. I’m literally spellbound whenever I hear him – at work, in my sleep, in college; he is with me like a lover. How I’ll explain it to Swanö and the rest of the guys has yet to be seen.

Novembre is an Italian progressive/gothic metal band, at least that’s the tripe they do in this album. If there is one thing I have learned from listening to this is that darker =/= better; actually, this is so bad that it almost makes me think of a horrible, retarded offspring between Everghey and *shudder* Opeth. Let’s get going; this is absurd, boring, mid-paced stuff, with lots of even more mid-paced, slower passages, if something of such nature is allowed to exist. I can’t find many redeeming elements in this garbage, and I’m not sure why the fuck did I get it in the first place, but I’ll try to be as nice as I can. But believe me, doing it is harder than it seems, taking in consideration how god-awful Materia is.

You may now have noticed that I’m not fond of this special prog/goth stuff. Sure, some bands are decent, some are even good, especially if you’re into (in a degree) depressive rock, or some kinds of doom metal; Anathema comes to mind. But…There’s a 95% chance that if you pick a random disc from this genre I won’t like it. Please, don’t get me started with the “But you just don’t get this music! It’s like, so deep, man” crap; because I like The Gathering, and that band is incredibly similar to Novembre, except that The Gathering are sort of awesome with their female vocalist, and the fact they manage to create a very nice atmosphere with lots of rich textures. Novembre, on the other hand, makes baby Satan cry; and it’s worthless, wimpy, and weak (That’s the rule of the 3W’s, and it’s bad). Now let’s get started.

The music in here is that typical sound that tries to masquerade itself as ‘deep’, ‘beautiful’, and ‘random snob adjective’. It fails on pretty much everything, except on the ‘deep’ part, unless you count “being neck-deep covered in bullshit” as ‘deep’, in that case, yeah, it’s deep. The guitars either provide backing chords as some sort of wall of sound, which reminds me of those crappy modern rock bands which try to be heavy. They do either that, or they are in the back doing some completely uninspired melody. That’s with the distortion though, because the acoustic stuff, in the random interludes (without vocals), are somewhat enjoyable. The problem is when they come below the verses, which have no connection with the music that preceded them.

A great part of the problems come when the band seem to not make up their fucking minds, take the introduction of “Jules”, which manages to be quite cool, but very unimpressive, and then it builds up and the drums join in…but it’s so fucking weak! This ‘almost got there but I wimped out, daddy’ attitude is what gets on my nerves, because that intro could have been really good if it had exploded into some mind numbing shred solo or at least a nice “Fade to Black-ish” acoustic part, well, the acoustic riff comes, but it’s really boring, and leaves you numb. They create such tension during that intro, you’re almost waiting for the main riff of “Trust” to kick in, and none of that happens! No, the intro ends and everything stops, with not a single riff to save the day. It’s not that the riffs are bad, it’s that they’re invisible! No riffs to be found here fellows, just either the ‘NA-NA-NA-NA’ chords, or ‘doo-dee-doo-doo’ acoustic parts, and some aren’t even half bad, like the second half of “Geppetto”…But, you know, it’s not worth it.

Don’t worry, it’s not over yet! Sure, the music is uninspired and boring, but the vocals must be good…don’t they? ANSWER ME GODDAMNIT TELL ME THE VOCALS ARE GOOD! Nope, when the verse begins; right as soon as the vocals kick in, a real shitstorm takes place, he sounds like he’s bored, right about to take a nap. What a shitty, shitty voice! Call me old fashioned, but metal vocals should be supposed to have some degree of power to them. I mentioned Anathema earlier, and that guy has a pretty good voice, even on the later modern albums, at least he doesn’t sound like his 14 year old family pet had just been put down—like the vocalist from Novembre does. That effect doesn’t make him sound sadder, just plain stupid, like a drunk guy at a party crying and texting his ex-girlfriend while mumbling about how Uncle Harry used to dress him up as a girl. It’s fucking pathetic, and you don’t know if pat his back repeatedly or get the fuck out of there before he flips out. And, just like that poor drunk at the party, the singer here becomes a pain in the ass as soon as he opens his stupid maw.

The bass is just minimally audible in the acoustic parts or random interludes which seem to be thrown there for no fucking reason, let alone the ‘heavy’ sections. The drums, although maybe technically competent, aren’t outstanding at all. However, there’s this really bad thing these kind of albums have with the drums, which is hitting the cymbals on EVERY hit; like, to give it some sort of wall of sound effect, trying to complement the already worthless guitar sections. You probably know what I’m talking about—“BISH-BOSH-BISH-BOSH”, during the whole fucking song; no cool flowery fills, but at least it’s not endless bass drumming, I’ll give it that. The sad part is that I can’t really think of anything else for the instruments themselves apart from what I’ve already stated, because ALL the songs sound the same. Here’s a quick example; listen to the 2:00 mark of “Memoria Stoica”, and there’s everything you need to know. The ingredients are there, one guitar doing random chords behind, the other some stupid melody in the higher frets, “BISH-BOSH-BOSH-BISH” on the cymbals, and that little whiner of a singer trying to not fall asleep and wake up with his face painted with swastikas and phalluses.

Why! Why, why WHY!! Please, this is too retarded; I have to stop buying albums with a ‘foggy’ cover art. Just look at it, it would almost be creepy if it weren’t so dumb, I don’t get it, at least. Well, if I haven’t convinced you on how much you shouldn’t listen to this, check out the 3:04 mark during “Jules”. Yeah, listen to it, do it slowly, do it fast, but after that, come here and tell me with a straight face that you don’t want to punch the son of a bitch in the face. “Lalala *hic* I’m sorry Sally, I promise I won’t embarrass you in public again just let’s go back together! *pukes*” To top it off, the whole thing lasts just over 70 minutes…Yeah, 70 minutes of Materia, I don’t wish that faith to anyone. I’ll award some points because some sections are nice by themselves, like the first minutes of “Nothijngrad”, and the singer manages to not suck completely, and there’s an almost enjoyable little guitar lick, but if you let it running, you’ll be checking your watch, just to find out the song’s just 2 minutes in, and it never fucking ends. Obviously, it then evolves to the normal Novembre we all know and looov—just know.

Well, hats off to you, if you listen to this album completely without pressing the stop/skip button, or throw your stereo over your window, or worse…yourself. Personally, I had to keep pressing the stop button and give myself a break off the horrible noise that was coming through my speakers. So please, make yourself a favor, if you don’t enjoy masochism of the kind that involves disemboweling yourself with a spoon, don’t buy/download/think about doing it/listening to Materia.

Novembre have a knack for making incredibly beautiful albums. Everything about this album is top notch, but in saying that, there are some flaws.

The production is amazing. The guitars are very heavy (in the bass heavy open chorded sense). The leads are very progressive and fit the music well. If there is any issue with the guitars it would be their utter lack of crunch that the band used in prior efforts.

The bass is damn good too. It wanders in and out of the guitar passages seamlessly. There is a lot of attitude here. The drums are (as always) brilliant. Giuseppe has got to be one of the best Metal drummers today.

The vocals are 97% clean and 3% Death. Carmelo has apparently been liking his clean vocals as they've been more and more prevalent on the bands successive release.

The downsides would be, some of the songs don't go anywhere or have that been there/done that feeling to them.

Over all, this album is near perfect. Its nothing but atmosphere in its most primal and breath taking form. There is so much passion in every note and verse that its hard to not be awe stricken when listening to it. This band/album are a must have for any Metalhead into the more romantic side of Metal.

I must say I’ve neglected this album a little. I’ve had my hands on a copy for a while now but never gave it a thorough listen. It’s had a proper run now and I’m ready to comment. Novembre have made some excellent albums prior to this and the standard is upheld on this outing. The move to Peaceville hasn’t had any considerable effect on their sound, maybe just in imagery with a new reader friendly logo and below average front cover art.

Opening track ‘Verne’ isn’t bad. The vocals can be a little too reverb? heavy, but the usual Novembre guitar sound is there. It’s well produced with all instruments ringing out clearly. ‘Memoria Stoica/Vetro’ opens with my favourite riffs on the album (after a short arpeggio), if only it lasted longer! (is it just me or does it sound like he’s singing ‘together we will take no s*** from you, lol). The opening arpeggio of ‘Aquamarine’ reminds me of something that would be found on Novembrine Waltz. The next track has some nice double bass drumming which is great (I love it when Novembre get fast, they can be so damn heavy when they want to).

‘Geppetto’ is a personal favourite of mine. There are so many highlights, starting at 1min 30 secs with an excellent lead guitar break. Then at 3mins it slows down and vocalist Carmelo Orlando gives plenty of dreamy oohs. Finally at 4min 30sec a beautiful build up leads to an amazing solo. Great song! Most of the lyrics are in Italian here and it works well. ‘Comedia’ starts fast and heavy and then continues pretty much mid pace throughout. You will notice there are very little death vocals on this album (there are some near the end of track nine) and it’s a pity because they have always worked in the past to great effect. In fact that would be my one main criticism of the album; the effect laden vocals can get a tad whiny at times.

To sum up, a solid release from Novembre. There is an air they are moving away from their heavier roots but it’s just one of those progression changes most bands go through. Oh, I forgot to mention track 8 ‘The Promise (Arcadia cover)’ which has the best vocal chorus of the album.

This was a completely random order for me. I heard Novembre had a new album, decided that I never checked them out enough, and got this album, Materia. Since then, I have successfully fallen in love with this album and desperately want to find this band's other albums. I'm have very little luck. Just a warning to those who get addicted to this album...it's impossible to find their older stuff.

What we have here is some bastard child of No-Man, Anathema and Katatonia. Death vocals are barely present. Vocal harmonies and "oohs"/"aahs" in the background are what fill up the vocals here. The vocals are excellent. The italian is all wonderful to listen to, partly because it's such a lyrical language in the first place. Plus, all the vocal harmonies are marvelous. Into Eternity should take notes on this album on how to make a proper harmony. Guitars aren't amazing, but they get the job done and create the atmospheric riffs the vocals need to work with. Drums are above average and all around a very solid performance.

The real thing that works here is the atmosphere of depressing beauty, sorrow, melancholy...all that. It's like Katatonia in some respects, but executed much better. This is the sort of thing you listen to on the way home in the car while it's raining while reminiscing about something. Maybe a trip with friends made, lost, but regardless, you won't see any of them again. It's a sad feeling and nothing else.

The real shining star on this album is the vocalist. Nasally? A tad. Emotionless? Hardly. He doesn't put in huge vibrato, or stretch out for high notes and start pulling a Devy-style scream. It's the emotion in simplicity, that makes you feel like giving up, or just being depressed. And the harmonies are absolutely beautiful. Period.

Songs follow a similiar template throughout the whole album. Start soft, grow, chorus, quiet to nothing with a different tempo/time signature, grow more wit ha slightly different melody, revert to old melody and tempo, finish. It works, although I'm not sure how. It doesn't get repetitive or same-y at all, fortunately.

The album is filled with hooks and catchy vocal lines, so it should be easy to get into. Reccomended for fans of Katatonia for sure and anything depressing and atmospheric. Best tracks are Jules, Geppetto, Aquamarine, and The Reason, but they're all rather good.