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Noumena - Death Walks With Me ~ Album review







NOUMENA is a Finnish melodic death metal band founded in 1998 formed of Suvi Uura & Antti Haapanen in the Vocals, Ville Lamminaho & Tuukka Tuomela in the Guitars, Hannu Savolainen in the Bass and Ilkka Unnbom in the Drums. They have returned with a new album called “Death walks with me” after 7 years of absence (since the release of Anatomy of life in 2006).

The album contains 11 tracks with some noticeable changes; we can clearly notice that they added a clean doom female voice. Many of their fans were against that, since they think that only the growling/grunting (and maybe a MALE clean voice) in a Melodeath album are able to satisfy their desire and Antti's growling is really awesome. I actually tend to agree; I wouldn't say that Suvi’s clean voice isn't so good; she has a really nice voice, it only doesn't connect with Antti's growling; a clean male voice would have been preferable.

In terms of music I would say there’s a "development". It’s a bit “heavier” and “stronger” compared to their three previous albums.
The addition of some atmospheric instruments like Cello (in Sundown), French horn (in Season Of Suffocation), Mandolin (in Mysteries Of Motion), Piano (in Sundown), Tambourine (in Handful Of dust)... gave the album an epic atmosphere full of emotions mixing with the guitars which they surprised me with their melodic riffs and awesome solos by Ville Lamminaho & Tuukka Tuomela, in which we can taste some progressive. As for Hannu Savolainen and Ilkka Unnbom they both played an important role to make the whole album melodic and atmospheric; there’s a marked touch of the old In Flame. That's what I actually liked in the album.
And regardless of Suvi's clean voice, she also participated in the additional growling in "Handful Of Dust", "Play Dead" and "Mysteries Of Motion".

The lyrics are perfectly written; every song is full of emotions and deals with an interesting topic. And even the titles were well chosen; they are so deep I would say! They make you wonder about the songs.

I also would like to throw a glance into the artwork cover! It's actually the first thing that attracted me once I took the CD! It's so dark and mysterious, there's a secret in it, which makes you feel excited to listen to the album!

And in spite of that disagreement in the vocals, the album was good in general; I especially appreciated the fact that they are back with a change in the music to show more of their capacities and to avoid becoming “typical” and… "boring" maybe? Anyway "DEATH WALKS WITH ME" couldn't only be listened by Melodic death metal fans but it can be recommended also to the listeners of Progressive and Doom.


Noumena just showed us more of the Finnish power!

Check out the band here.

                                    Rating : 7/10


Catuvolcus - Gergovia ~ Album review







Differently to the most of black metal bands that travel into the history of middle ages with their lyrics and usually talk about, the Canadian band Catuvolcus chose another theme instead and they focused on the Gaul.
The band was formed in 2007 in Quebec; it includes 4 members, Pierre-Alexandre Plessix in the vocals, Maxime Côté in the guitars, Etienne Gallo in the Drums and Dominic Forest Lapointe in the Bass Guitar.

Just like their other releases, Catuvolcus are going to make us travel through the pages of history with their second album Gergovia released in 2012. This concept-album is about one of the most important battles in Gallic wars; it’s between the Gaul and the Roman legions guided by Julius Caesar that took place in the Gergovie oppidum in Arverne and which ended with the victory of the Gaul. It features nine titles, started by an acoustic prologue with the sound of rain, wind, mystery; and ended by an epic epilogue. Every track contains some interesting events... I would say every track is a chapter of the story because the writing process is full of narration and seems like you're reading a book while reading the lyrics and what make them more epic is that they're in French and we all know how the pronunciation of this language is so amazing. Adding to that a very atmospheric music that automatically sends you to 52 BC; you totally feel like you’re in the middle of that battle, seeing all that blood and hearing all the strikes of the swords.
And while Maxime Côté and Matrak Tveskaeg (Ex bass-player) amuse us with their epic riffs and solos, and that powerful drums excites us. Pierre-Alexandre Plessix played an important role too with his mighty grunt and some clean voice.

This album is melodic and brutal in the same time; we can taste the victory as we can taste the defeat; it ends with a calm acoustic epilogue expressing the end of the battle and it connects with the prologue, that's what makes you not feel that “break” when you replay the album, it automatically makes you want to replay it without taking you out of the atmosphere of the battle.

If you really want to try a new black metal theme and a different history, if you want to live some instants from the antiquity you should check out CATUVOLCUS, a band with so much power and many stories to narrate us.

Check out the band here.



                                    Rating : 8/10