What do you get if you mix
Opeth and
Dream Theater - well, I'd say that it would be something close to the Italian band
Novembre. The band plays hybrid metal with elements from death, black and symphonic metal, and all the songs are build up progressively - hence
Dream Theater.
Novembre made their first album "Wish I Could Dream It Again" in 1995, and Dreams d'Azur is their fifth album.
I am not sure what the album's title is supposed to mean - but the word "dream" is indeed a keyword for this album. All the songs have a sort of dreaming trance-like feel to them - it is hard to explain, and I guess you have to hear the music to understand what I am talking about.
There is a great mix between distorted and non-distorted guitar on the album - and the keyboard play is great. Another thing I like is that the bass isn't completely anonymous, which is the case in much metal. The vocalist Carmelo Orlando does a great job using both clean and screaming black metal vocals.
The Dream Of The Old Boats is the first song on the album, and it is quite good. It starts up slow, and then builds up in a very progressive manner. In the first part of the song the clean vocals are used, and later the screaming vocals take over. There is a really nice and melodic ending of the song.
Nottetempo starts out slowly with acoustic guitar and then builds up to a more heavy part - the song is, however, not aggressive or brutal in any way. There is not much singing in the song - the vocals in the song are dreaming, chanting and almost Enya-like.
Let me hate is one of the hardest tracks on the album. It is fast paced and starts out almost like black metal like. In the first part of the song there is focus on the drums, and in the last part of the song there is focus on an excellent guitar solo.
The Music is another song that builds up and gets harder. It has a great flow, and some really great guitar riffs - a very beautiful song in my opinion.
This is not an album I would put in my CD player to exercise my headbanging or airguitar skills. Instead this is one of those albums you really have to listen to with your headphones on- I guess this is the case with most progressive music anyway.
Dreams d'Azur is an interesting album with lots of good songs. I rate the album 7.5 since it is a very decent album, but not something really special.
Written by
Anders Tuesday, January 7, 2003
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