Numenorean is a post-black metal band from Canada. Reading that their music “embraces beauty, harshness, brutality, and melancholy in equal measure”, we are invited to draw comparison with Alcest and Deafheaven amongst others. Such description immediately made me think of Novembre.
The title track, which sets us on our way, does justice to the description and, yes, the screams and eternal roars, which accompany this mixture of thunderous melancholy and expansive majesty, do bring Novembre to mind. Above all it’s powerful and I realised as we progressed to the equally desperate yet sensitive “Thirst” that time does not stand still. The urgency arises no doubt from the pace of the drum and heavy delivery, but lurking on the surface is an exotic rhythm line. Suddenly there is a pause for sonic reflection and we can at last get our breath back. The calming mood continues into “Shoreless”, a dark and atmospheric instrumental piece. For me, this track took the edge off the excitement I had felt when listening to the first two, so I was glad when the breezy and ringing “Devour” started. Quickly we are plunged into heavy clouds and heavy music but Numenorean skilfully colour the despair and melancholy with the aid of invigorating melodies and transforming scenes. A post-metal ring supports the passion and power which stand at the front of this ferocious heartbeat. It’s a magnificent blend. Piercing cries of despair are balanced with acoustic and post-metal lines. The drummer pounds out power and authority. Dark as it is, the strident urgency uplifts “Devour” until the final of its twelve minutes when we are invited to reflect in the wake of cosmically symphonic ending. I’m not sure such a change worked so well as it was more surprising than natural or effective, but is to take nothing away from the overall vibrancy and atmospheric nature of what had gone before. The ambient acoustic melancholy continues into “Laid Down”, and predictably storms gather and build into battering ram drumming and wild and lengthy screams. But in the way that Numenorean prove that they can do, the storm subsides momentarily and a mystical and gripping post metal follows. It’s magnificent and monumental in its grandeur. It’s as if Numenorean have decided to break out of the heaviness, and are concentrating on power and breadth. A break signals the final four minutes and a fittingly epic and heavy pre-conclusion before we are taken out quietly.
“Home” sweeps us along a road full of despair, power and epic majesty. Although I didn’t always appreciate the flow of passages and structures, didn’t find it completely joined up and yet found it predictable in parts, I still very much enjoyed listening to this album, whose best passages were of the highest quality of nerve-jangling expression.
(7.5/10 Andrew Doherty)
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