Barely two years after the magnificent "Souvenirs", Novelists is back with a new record soberly named "Noir". Novelists is a French band that plays a progressive music, which picks up djent, metalcore, metal, pop or rock elements, to generate plural compositions, a kind of melting pot with various influences.
Today, with "Noir", the band confirm all the good we could think of them. The disc is a rise from darkness to light, the scarlet rebirth of a lost soul. Through a tenuous red thread, the listener follows a path of healing, tormented, tortuous and tortured. The light obviously emerges from the stages that express a certain struggle between light and darkness.
The opus begins with 'L'appel du Vide', where a stripped down guitar is born, then square riffs that awaken the numb senses. The emotionally charged voice takes us by the hand on tortuous paths with complex rhythms. The music flows with elegance, because Novelists is always right in its intentions. 'Monochrome' expels a handful of bare chords, a drum set that twirls in the outer space and a velvet voice between intimacy and raw power. It is then that a saxophone supplants the organ and launches a complaint that springs out of the darkness.
Then, little by little, we witness a musical transformation: 'Under Differents Welkins' gives way to more anger. The clear and saturated voices play on equal terms, the rhythms are more square. 'Stranger Self' incorporates rapped passages, 'The Light, The Fire' brings us into a state of calm, while 'Lead The Light' is full of contrasts and variations with its serene arpeggios...
Novelists, alongside Kadinja, are the spearheads of a music that explores unknown territories. "Noir" is thus a resplendent nugget in dazzling and disturbing light. In this "Noir" there is hope, a hope raised by music, a hope to witness the birth of a musical myth.