November is Doom- In Grief: "An eternity of misery"

 The Italian doom band formed two years ago. They are more on the death doom side. Raw growled vocals offset some of the more melodic musings that break up the weight plod of distortion. They do not draw from any one band as far as influences go, you can hear traces of bands like My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost as they are on the more melodic side of things. My Dying Bride perhaps more so, with string and piano parts providing atmosphere. There are none of the emotive goth trappings, and it does not have as sorrowful a feel. The pace picks up more as the vocals become more accented in their roar to create a more galloping feel. The guitar melodies still drip with bloody tears to pain the song a with more romantic tones than your typical death metal. 

"Curse My Soul' does not really bring anything new to the table in terms of sonic colors or arrangements. It follows a formula not unlike the one that kicked off this album. They do have dynamics and an ebb and flow however it works off similar shades of grey. When you compare what these guys do ot other death doom bands, they are rather straight forward in comparison. I can appreciate the more thrash influenced riffing that colors some of the riffs in "Queen of Babylon" . The first more melodic colors surface on "Demons" when s clean sung vocals come in to add a more goth tone. The eerie ambiance of the guitars gives the song rom to breath, they shift genres her very gracefully and stay true to what they were doing. 

"Dig Hopes" has some very nuanced guitar work, but largely follows a similar path to where they have already trudged on this album. Dark and brooding with melody creeping from the edge of the crunching chugs. "Close to Insanity' does not feel very insane in fact it is tightly reined in with a great deal of deliberate purpose in the steady riffing, some guitars to wander in places but the overall throb is focused. Things slow down and get a darker smoking anger to them on "the dagger, the chain the scourge". This is much more funeral doom with the vocals scarping lower. At eight and a half minutes this is the album's longest song which is pretty efficient song writing for a doom band. I will give this one an 8,5, They are good at what they do, but I could stand for them to mess with the formula a little more, after all metal should take chances rather than conform. This was released by Iron Bonehead Productions.