Does it djent? Why yes, it does! But just how well does it djent? We find the answers in Novelists’ brand new record ‘Souvenirs‘.
[tracklist]
01. Inanimate
02. Earth Grazer
03. Gravity
04. Antares
05. Ouroboros
06. Black Lights
07. Voyager
08. Muchos Touché
09. Echoes
10. 5:12 AM
11. The Lichtenberg Figure
12. Souvenirs
[/tracklist]
[details][record_label]Arising Empire[/record_label]
[release_date]November 6th, 2015[/release_date]
[/details]
For reasons that we haven’t quite put our thumb on yet, there has been some extraordinary talent coming out of France for the past year, especially the Paris region that is one not typically associated with producing metal. In this same year the number of djent bands worldwide has also significantly risen, leaving a tough battlefield to compete in. Novelists are the by-product of both phenomenon – they have impressed with their approach to covers and given us more than a bit of taste of what they can do, but now they must tackle the full album.
The sheer numbers of djent bands in the current day are putting the sound into the mainstream, but everyone trying to impress with their binary skill is starting to make the genre stale. With Novelist’s approach to ‘Souvenirs‘ it appears they are making an attempt to shoot themselves to the top of the game in an instant opening with a more unconventional genre intro track in ‘Inanimate‘, before becoming a bit too mainstream with binary attacks in ‘Earth Graver‘.
The sort of inconsistencies in terms of sound are what make the album teeter on the bounds of uniqueness. Tracks like ‘Gravity‘ are absolutely smashing, and clearly underline the sound that will define their career – a hard, melodic and atmospheric approach where quick odd time signatures break the successive low hard zeroes and melodic high overlays. On that subject one of my tracks of 2015 is found in ‘The Voyager‘, that is an absolutely sublime piece of music both in the technical respect and songwriting ability.
The problem I find in ‘Souvenirs‘ is that there often seems like the band are not quite sure how to bridge those absolutely brilliant moments with each other, and opt for filling it with ones and zeroes that can quickly lose a listeners attention, ‘Ouroborous‘ being one of the key victims of this. But make no mistake about it, where the band do demonstrate that technical sound that they own, Novelists are far superior than any other modern djent band on the market at the moment.
If Novelists next album has 10 tracks with the same creativity as ‘The Voyager‘, they will win music forever. ‘Souvenirs‘ to me however feels a few shillings short of a penny in that there are blotches that could have been better written. The album is actually worth it for a couple of the tracks alone, but if you are looking for a full and flowing album experience ‘Souvenirs‘ might not quite be for you.
[verdict]Maybe[/verdict]
[why]There are flashes of absolute brilliance in ‘Souvenirs’, but they are sandwiched between the distinctly average binary attacks. A couple of tracks are sublime, but the album needs a tad more to cement a superior status.[/why]
