Novembers Doom started life way back in 1989 as a doom death metal bandthat was heavily influenced by My Dying Bride and their ilk. While theband has been raising its profile in the subsequent years andprogressing beyond their early influences, it was 2005's highlyacclaimed The Pale Haunt Departure that pushed the band to a new level.The band had moved on from the doom death of old to become a verydynamic melodic extreme metal band. While the atmosphere that the songsconjured were doomy, the band incorporated a whole bunch of differentstyles to make that album quite special.

Early this year the band released their sixth album The NovellaReservoir and the band has done a great job in following up TPHD withanother album of high quality metal.

The album starts with terrific Rain. The song starts with some chuggingriffs and vocalist Paul Kuhr sounds terrific doing his death growls.The song moves onto an acoustic interlude but comes back to a verygroovy riff that interchanges with some Opeth inspired melodies. Theband sounds a bit different here though. While the last album was somepummeling doom/ death metal this one sees the band experiment with moremelody and some rocking modern thrash riffs. Title song, The NovellaReservoir is a highlight of the album with its Opeth like use ofdynamics and another stunning performance from the vocalist. While Iprefer his growls and screeches to his clean vocals, Paul Kuhr is wayabove competent with his singing and the song ends with a very tastefullead guitar part.

The very next song Drown The Inland Mere is the real surprise. Startingoff with some energetic Nevermore like riffing, the song blasts out ofthe speakers before dropping the tempo and going off into someatmospheric clean vocals that are in the Goth doom territory. TwilightInnocence is the obligatory ballad on the album and comes across likesomething from Anathema’s Judgment. While not as good and with someincredibly cheesy romantic lyrics the song works with its subtlemelodies. They Were Left To Die is another crushing doom/death song.The album ends with the melancholic brilliance of Leaving This whichcomes across a bit like My Dying Bride at the start before progressinginto melodic doom metal and is the perfect ending to an album that isalmost perfect. 


While the band seem influenced by a bunch of bands ranging from Opethto Nevermore and some classic doom bands, there isn’t any one band thatthey sound like. The Novella Reservoir is the sound of a band that has,over the course of three albums carved a unique path for themselves.

The band is in top form and the guitarists fucking destroy with their combination of death metal ferocity and the slowed down melancholicfeel that’s prevalent throughout the album. The vocals of Paul Kuhr isone of the highlights of the album and his part growling partscreeching part clean singling style works perfectly. The guitaristsplay some terrific melodic leads right through the album and the songssound fresh and powerful.

It was going to be difficult to top The Pale Haunt Departure and whileit’s still too early to say if this album is better, it’s pretty fairto say that The Novella Reservoir is just as good. This album is goingto end up in more than a few year end lists and is absolutely essentialfor fans of melodic extreme metal.

Label - The End

Year Of Release - 2007