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.     

November is Doom- Carrier Wave : "s/t"

This band is heavier than I thought they would be going into this. They are also slower and more focused on doom, than the kind of smoked out jam fest I thought I was getting into. They are very deliberate with the crunch of the first song, only really stopping to smell the roses when it is time for a guitar solo. It makes more sense for a opening song to be fourteen minutes due to the deliberate pacing. They shift the dynamics and let the chords crush you more when they come out of the jammy solo section. I like the uses of delay on the vocals for the second song. It is heavier and more pounding, though unwieldly in its mammoth lumbering. I think this song has a collection of better sounds, where the first album makes the most of the sounds it does have. Almost five minutes into the song's things get dark and spooky in a very trippy way, which makes for an interesting listen.

 "Skyhammer" is lives up to it's name as it is indeed more hammering in terms of the attack the drums pummeling into the song. The vocal bellow along, but the overall arrangement does not feel as fluid. It does have a weightier sound, which is what some people might want from this band.  I think the previous song clued me into that, so I wanted something a little different from them. Their guitar solo seems more off the cuff. It breaks things up a little but hold no other purpose. To their credit this one is under eight minutes not only making it the album's shortest song, but proving they are capable of getting it done in under ten minutes. 

The last song brings a trippy haze to things. At ten and a half minutes, it comes close to finding the band getting more concise, as the fat that could be trimmed lies in some of the atmosphere, though the more psychedelic sounds they summon on this one makes it one of the more experimental moments of the album and break away from other doom metal conventions to do their own things. The boozy way the chords are strummed at the beginning of the song is one of the ways they form their own sound here.  I will give this one an 8.5, it is surreal and different, but they could have given the vocals a little more purpose. With that said this is still one of the more original outings from a doom band.