‘Nomas’, the 3rd album from Italian blackened funeral doomsters Arcana Coelestia, has finally arrived after a long and difficult labour. Stuck in development hell over four years largely due to personal difficulties within the band, matters were finally resolved when RM stepped in as new vocalist, the upshot being that now all members of the band were also in Locus Mortis, so proving that they can at least all work together. As long and arduous a task as it may have been, it has most definitely been worth the wait. They favour the epic and melodic approach to funeral doom rather than the epically crushing and spirit devouring style of some others, and it serves them well. You could almost call it uplifting.
From the opening notes of ‘Nomas I’ there is an appreciation of the vastness of the soundscape with the bass and drums laying down a crushing foundation for the soaring melodic lead that really defines the album. Following a solid opening passage in a melodic funeral doom style, the track switches to a more solid and insistent epic black metal vein around the four minute mark with RM’s aggressive vocal maintaining a slower pace over the accelerated riffing. The music ebbs and flows through many different styles over the course of the album without ever losing a step and before you know it you have surrendered yourself to the journey and all its hypnotic glory.
The styles switch regularly and seamlessly between epic funeral doom, where things closely resemble Johan Ericsson’s Doom:VS project due to the vocal style and melodic lead work, to a blackened doom charge with appropriate blasting and tremolo picking all linked together with slow folk inspired passages and sprawling orchestral keyboard interludes. We switch from the soothing beauty that closes ‘Nomas III’ to the blasting violence of ‘Nomas IV’ in the blink of an eye, before veering off on another tangent. For best effect the album is best listened to in one sitting as it plays out almost like an opera, moving swiftly from one scene to the next, with large set pieces punctuated with dramatic interludes and high emotion.
‘Nomas’ is a stunning piece of art and after listening to some of Arcana Coelestia’s previous work it sounds as if whatever problems and issues they have faced over the past few years, it has finally played out for the best as there is a very definite sense that they have been creatively unshackled. There are a few niggling little problems with it though, the main one being that it is too short. At a total running time of over 42 minutes it definitely feels as if there could have been another track added to this without compromising the integrity and the feel of the album as it stands. Overall it’s a really engaging, interesting and intermittently beautiful album that absolutely deserves your attention.
(8.5/10, Lee Kimber)
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