Spikefarm Records (2005)
2004-2005 for melodic death heads was a bit uneven. Especially if you were splashing cash on imports (like I was, and still fucking am.) For the hardcore In Flames oldies, Soundtrack to Your Escape was relegated to "coaster tier" pretty damn quick, written off as trite cash-grabby garbage. Doomsday Machine by Arch Enemy was a decent effort, although lacking that grittier twin-lead panache that defined their barnstorming rise at the end of the last millenium. Dark Tranquillity hulked into heavier territory on Character, jettisoning much of the goth influence of the past three or so records - a great platter nonetheless. Fellow Swedes Darkane's Layers of Lies shored up the harder, more straightforward melodic death on offer, while Soilwork's Stabbing The Drama was flirting with metalcore, buying her drinks, and taking her home at the end of the night. Scar Symmetry debuted their sci-fi melodeath weirdness this year, too. Of course, Insomnium was fast racing into view with Since The Day It All Came Down, an impressive turn on folky melodic death, the template for the masterpiece that was to come.
So why did everyone seem to sleep on Finns Noumena and their second album Absence, possibly one of the best, if not the best melodic death releases of 2005? How on earth did they follow it up with something equally as impressive a year later (Anatomy of Life) and sweep themselves into obscurity for almost a decade after? Huh?
When End of the Century proudly struts its mammoth chops in the first thirty seconds or so of this incredible melodeath record, it's easy to think - "Ahh, the record In Flames SHOULD have made after Clayman." You'd be hard pressed to think this wasn't Colony or Clayman II, Anders Friden replaced by an hirsute, ursine Finn toiling in the darkness of lower registers. A jig-like folk melody dances through fields of big, clashing riffs before halting for a noodly lead break that, upon closer inspection, Bjorn Gelotte or Jesper Stromblad had absolutely nothing to do with.
Hear also the reverbed acoustic intro of Slain Memories, a near clone of In Flames’ Square Nothing, though after the intro it departs for a completely opposite destination, all sad female vocals instead of bloody knuckled riffs. It's so easy to write this off as In Flames forgery - and my brain desperately is clamouring for me to do it - but it stands idle in mute defiance. I will not talk shit about this song - nor the record. That's despite reviewers growing tired, so tired of the melodic death craze after a near decade in the sun.
MetalStorm.net said "While the whole Melodic/Gothenburg Death Metal craze seems to be wearing off, there are some bands attempting to achieve success playing such genre [sic.]. [It's] a great genre with many good assets, and many hindrances also, like the repetitiveness, lack of innovation, false creativity and many more, and what else you could expect from a genre that spawns hundreds of bands each year?
Nowadays I don't think there's a band that's going to reinvent Melodeath. It's a genre that reached its peak [...] Nowadays we have the leftovers of a genre that already gave the best of itself, one of the results of the cathartic act is Noumena." High praise indeed, considering.
Absence arrived about a year before Amorphis revamped itself with Eclipse. Bouncy Finnish folk melodies wouldn't become synonymous with Amorphis until that album dropped, at least from what I can remember. Didn’t stop Metal-Archives.com nerds from making the comparison, though. I might play Eclipse to some friends and chuck All Veiled somewhere in there and see if anyone notices.*
Second track Everlasting Ward pairs Maiden gallop and jaunty frostbitten melody and serves it up with a side of bowel-gurgling growls AND plaintive cleans. One has to wonder why Amorphis endured and these guys didn't. To make an outstanding album one (ideally) throws out the rulebook. These melodies wouldn't feel out of place on a cheese-filled power metal record. However they aren't worked to absolute death, but as a basis for constructing thoughtful, almost poignant songs around them. They even brought back female cleans, thought extinct after Dark Tranquillity’s Projector or In Flames Whoracle. Prey of the Tempter heaps every passe melodeath trope (low-end riffs, clean vocals, staccato rhythms, baroque-cribbed melodies) into a barrel until they’ve spun it clean of cliche. Then it comes out sounding a bit like Sentenced, which isn’t altogether a bad thing. They have this knack beginning with the familiar and taking you somewhere completely foreign by the start of the first verse, like another acoust-introed The Dream and The Escape. seething with the fury of Dark Tranquillity’s earlier thrashier fare.
On paper, this all sounds unoriginal and derivative. I promise you - in reality, it’s far greater than the sum of its parts. Although prices for the disc itself are eyewateringly astronomical, give this a “spin” on the streaming service of your choice. You’ll walk away changed.
*I have like one friend that would sit through an entire metal album with me, and he would definitely fucking notice.
