November is Doom- Barren : "The Hanged Man"

 What drew me to this album by the New Jersey band was it chronicles one of the member's six-year battle with heroin addiction. This is not only relatable., but lets me know it comes from an actual place of darkness so there is not going to be any bullshitting here. Most Musicians could benefit from an addiction or two, though most have likely found them surfaced in varied forms. This feels more like a sludge band to me than death doom, which is how they identify. There are varied vocal styles on this album which works well. Most of the vocals are howled from a pretty tormented place. "Death Interrupted"  finds a more doomy riff as its spine. The sonic stomping that it swells into has more hints of crust than death metal which is fine with me. 

The crusty vibes are evident in the rather raw production. The sound reminds me of Acid Witch in some ways, but there is a different kind of creepy to what is going down here. They are also lest metal and more punk in the DNA of their sound, lending weight to what I said about sludge earlier as sludge is what happens when punks try to play doom. There are odd passages of clean guitar ebb and flow between the more punishing riffs.  The groove to this song works well in its own hypnotic manner. "Ruminations"  lets the bass lead into the song. It takes two minutes for the song to find its groove, Overall it is a more abstract approach to songwriting. After five and a half m minutes it does find its chug.

Things begin to sprawl out more darkly for the almost 12-minute "L'appel du Vide", which goes through a shifting journey of metal styles that includes blast beats. More Focused than the previous song, but not the album's most focused moment., Lower growls do erupt on this song. "Among the Pines" closes the album, the raw sonic heaviness of the crust-tinged elements to their sound took me by surprise overall on this album and this is the main backbone of this song., They succeeded in being as heavy sonically as they are heavy metal, though not simply summed up as a doom band, though drummer sets a doomier stage on this song. This album is excellent and shows that the band can think out of the box will give it a 9. 

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