Chicago's November's Doom are one of those bands that just keep growing and getting better with each release. Their seventh release, Into Night's Requiem Infernal, sees their death/doom metal sound progressing even further, as the band now seems to have reached their peak in terms of musicianship and songwriting, and the results are quite staggering.
Produced by the band, Into Night's Requiem Infernal is a great sounding CD, with the guitars crisp yet heavy as hell, and Paul Kuhr's mix of deathly growls and dark clean vocals perfectly coming through in the mix. The opening title track is a wonderful display of dark death metal with doom undertones, easily as ponderously heavy as the best from Candlemass, Paradise Lost, or Heaven & Hell this year. The band adds some progressive & gothic elements on the mysterious "Eulogy For The Living Lost", a real textured piece that sees a wide variety of vocal styles from Kuhr and plenty of heavy riffs and even some acoustic work from guitarists Larry Roberts & Vito Marchese. Lilting guitar picking leads in "Empathy's Greed", before crushing riffs, keyboards, and some heavy drum work from Sasha Horn turn the piece into a monstrous metal epic. To mix things up there's a little jazzy/folky interlude smack dab in the middle of the song, followed by some tasty dual guitar harmonies and Kuhr's engaging clean vocal passages. Fans of Opeth and Amorphis will totally dig this one!
"The Fifth Day of March" is a folky, melancholic number, again with a strong Opeth feel with perhaps a touch of Pink Floyd, featuring some great melodic vocals and layers of lush guitars. Nicely done. They follow this up with the rampaging death metal track "Lazarus Regret", complete with behemoth vocal growls and booming bass riffs from Chris Wisco, and "I Hurt Those I Adore" is a great slice of dark, textured, and melodic extreme metal. The band goes for the juggular on the raging "The Harlots Lie", and close things out with the prog rock/folk/death metal track "When Desperation Fills The Void", a real varied number that has so many elements to it you'll need to play it back a few times for it all to sink in.
Their crowning achievement you ask? Into Night's Requiem Infernal could very well be the tour-de-force that November's Doom has been on the verge of releasing for a few years now. If you are interested in hearing how death metal, doom, folk, and prog all come together in one seamless vision, you'll need to check this out.
Track Listing
01. Into Night's Requiem Infernal
02. Eulogy For The Living Lost
03. Empathy's Greed
04. The Fifth Day Of March
05. Lazarus Regret
06. I Hurt Those I Adore
07. The Harlots Lie
08. When Desperation Fills The Void
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