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
