Hailing from Chicago, Illinois, Novembers Doom were first brought to my attention by a disgruntled Opeth fan, who, unimpressed with the band's last offering, was recommending Novembers Doom's The Pale Haunt Departure instead. He informed me that the vocals - clean and harsh - were just as good as Mikael Ã"¦kerfeldt's and the songs were simply "much better", his words, not mine.
I decided to check out The Pale Haunt Departure and enjoyed it immensely. The comparison to Opeth is inevitable as both bands use clean and harsh vocals and have softer sections to complement the more furious metal parts. However, Novembers Doom were a doom metal band, and so the nuances of that genre permeate The Pale Haunt Departure.
The first thing at strikes you as The Novella Reservoir starts is how heavy and atmospheric the first track "Rain" is. Many of their doom metal traits have been replaced by elements more characteristic of death metal. Halfway through the track, the song does slow down before finally pummeling you again until its conclusion.
Paul Kuhr is easily up there with Vader's Piotr Wiwczarek, Akercocke's Jason Mendonca, and Opeth's Mikael Ã"¦kerfeldt's in terms of vocal ability. His growls contain a harshness and clarity few of his peers can match, and his clean vocals retain a great deal of emotion. Its notable to mention that the clean vocals are used more sparingly than on their previous albums, which adds to there effect when they do enter, especially on the final track "Leaving This" where after five minutes, glorious layered vocals are used over an acoustic guitar and later a piano melody as the song slowly fades out.
The title track is another high point, starting with gentle acoustics it soon explodes into a majestic metal section, which is probably the most doom-esque moment of the album. The cleanly sung chorus is one of the albums best, and the harmonized guitar leads and ending solo is awesome.
The album's eight tracks all offer something different, from the ballad like "Twilight Innocence" to the pummeling death metal and great drumming of "Drown the Inland Mere." The band has naturally progressed from their doom metal roots and into more atmospheric death metal territory incredible well, in doing so they have produced a good album in the process.
