Novembre�s latest album The Blue is a record that requires time and effort to get a hold on it. Their music is a mixture of doom, death, goth but most of all progressive metal, which means there is a lot of melody, a lot of variety and a lot of layers in the music. The songs are all very epic and emotional, both the brutal and the melodic parts. Luckily the vocals aren�t one-dimensional but go from clean passages to brutal grunts and screams, adapting to the music perfectly. This truly is a treat for any progressive metal lover.

 

Most songs are pretty long and contain a load on riffs and vocal lines. The clean vocals sound a tad whiny to me, but they are executed pretty good. They possess enough emotion to get the message through correctly. Furthermore this album is loaded with impressive solos that take the band even higher in ranking. All in all a very entertaining disc.

 

In the end I can�t say that it�s a great band for me personally, I�m not that much of a proghead anyway. But I can surely recommend it to any fan of bands like Opeth, Katatonia and Anathema.