Noveria
Risen

Risen from the dark or from a union of members from bands like DGM, Solisia, Empyrios and more. This is another italian progressive metal album, it seems like italian prog is on the rise again, that is fun considering that there are some brilliance amongst those bands. This band has a dark looking cover art that looks fairly extreme metal and such. Kind of looks a bit off what you could expect, maybe scaring the fans off. Then again, fans of progressive music should know better than to judge a book by its cover.

Musically it is progressive, but a bit heavier and more powerful than it usually is in this genre. They even add some growly stuff which can be seen as something of a breath of fresh air, otherwise it reminds me of other powerful italians like DGM which shares a few members with this band and Eldritch who are heavy and progressive. Good melodies and a strong production is what they offer with this album. Good variation and a short album that makes it very edgy, only 42 minutes of playing time and no long tracks, that is progressive for a progressive album. Quite exciting in its own way I would say, they certainly don’t frighten away the genre fans.

It is a very good album. Solid, to the point, it has enough depth to make it last for repetitive listens which is always a plus. Some reviewers said it was almost perfect or great and so on. I am not sure I want to go that far, you see there is nothing that grabs my attention. They do not reinvent the wheel or the genre, there are a few fresh ideas but not really enough to make anyone stop in their stride and really notice. The lack of focal point is the biggest weakness of this album, but at the same time it has no real weakness just those little things that makes the album slightly less good than it could have been. It is at least very good with a band that goes their own path and aren’t cowardly, in my opinion they just fail to really catch my full attention.

In the end I would say that I kind of like this album even though it doesn’t quite have anything that draws me towards it. There are some cool ideas and I think it is probably something that is worth looking into if you are into progressive metal, especially if you like the italian kind. If you do not confess yourself as one of those fans of italian prog you probably do better if you look at the Eldritch album that came earlier this year as it is quite a bit better. Still, I think we can say that it is a decent debut and there is probably more to come from Noveria.

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