NOVEMBER – Words Of Indigo

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8.0

• Bands:
  NOVEMBER
• Duration: 01:05:48
• Available from: 07/11/2025
• Label:

• Peaceville

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This time too, breaking buried doubts with finally re-blooming hopes, Novembre rises again to yet another new life. And they obviously do so by publishing a highly anticipated work of return to the scene, which projects the Sicilian-Roman band onto the giant screens of heavy and less heavy metal for an invigorating, fresh and fragrant bath of popularity.
Writing that we hoped for their return is almost superfluous, but the fear that this wouldn't actually happen, well… that was tangible.
The previous “URSA” dates back to 2016, the album before that, “The Blue”, dates back to 2007: this means respectively nine and eighteen years of forgetfulness, vague and scattered memories of melodies and atmospheric passages, the awareness of being faced, always and in any case, with one of the most seminal and influential Italian groups of our favorite music, capable however of incalculable silences, multi-year hibernations and astonishing reappeared.

But now the wait is over, now we have before our eyes the usual, splendid cover of the master Travis Smith, the work at the console of the equally masterful Dan Swano and with the eleven component songs “Words Of Indigo” in our ears, a work that stakes the status of mature prime movers of November and, at the same time, renews its forms and substances thanks to the brand new line-up.
We present it briefly: alongside Carmelo Orlando, the only historical member of the group left after the definitive abandonment of guitarist Massimiliano Pagliuso, we find the faithful Fabio Fraschini on bass, seen several times at work with Novembre although he has never been an official part of it, at least until today; the other three new members, the excellent drummer Yuri Croscenko and the two guitarists Alessio Erriu and Federico Albanese, are younger and more beardless.
These 'Magnificent Five' are the final outcome of the writing process of “Words Of Indigo”, a process conducted by Carmelo over the years during the pandemic in a constant and obviously non-stop way, aimed at producing n-thousand riffs and then trying to give a meaning, a beginning and a tail so that his magical sound puzzles are accomplished, assisted in the arrangement by the other four companions, some more or less involved in the composition process.

“Words Of Indigo”, let's say it straight away to avoid any misunderstanding, is a 100% November album, full of the characteristics that made the band great, that is, warm, enveloping but twilight atmospheres; Mediterranean and at times overflowing melodies; a forest of painstaking arrangements to discover with every listen; the search for catchiness that is always in good taste, left to drip into the soul enjoyment after enjoyment; a precocious maturity (and today absolutely consolidated in this decidedly adult age) and a progressive approach to the conception of the songs, an approach that has always allowed Novembre to personalize their proposal rather easily, and since their debut “Wish I Could Dream It Again…” (1994).
It is therefore a 'simple' collection of unreleased songs by Novembre, exceptional, in the most literal sense of the term, if we consider the timing of publication, but also rather standardized if we carefully analyze the quality of the current compositions: clearly, Novembre's music is of a much higher level than average, which is precisely why we expect masterpiece songs from them with every pick, with every moving vocal line. From this point of view, “Words Of Indigo” adds little – and hence the drop of half a vote compared to the latest evaluations – to an incredible discography, to which are added eleven tracks of very valid and more than excellent material, but which ultimately fail to dig much into the depths of the soul, except in important moments of particular emphasis and great inspiration.

Listening after listening growth is often the secret to defining a work as exciting or not, and “Words Of Indigo” works well in this aspect too, with most of the songs inexorably rising in popularity with each passage.
This happens, for example, for the instrumental “Ipernotte”, for the imaginative “Statua”, animated by very high progressive impulses, for the same first two singles published, the immediate “Your Holocene” and the gothic “House Of Rain”, sung by Carmelo paired with the revived Ann-Mari Edvardsen, unforgettable singer of The Third And The Mortal and already protagonist with our standard bearers in “Novembrine Waltz”, more precisely in the cover of “Cloudbusting” by Kate Bush.
The opener “Sun Magenta” is also very good, equipped with a very catchy chorus and perfectly shaped on the clean vocal cords of Carmelo Orlando who is once again very good at transferring into the recording of the album a branched maze of emotional nuances in his own voice, whether he expresses himself in his very typical clean or lets himself go to desperation with excruciating growls and screams.
While “Intervallo” briefly breaks the work in half, very clearly bringing to mind the main arpeggio of “Conservatory Resonance” (song featured on “Novembrine Waltz”), our two favorite tracks take the form of “Neptunian Hearts”, in the first part of the album, and “Chiesa Dell'Alba”, in the second: “Neptunian Hearts” is a highly inspired and swirling ups and downs, which starts with epic guitar hooks which then flow into a bridge-chorus with very sweet clean voices and then rise into a very violent tupa-tupa section where Carmelo's growl takes over again; calmer central section, super solo and then restart in full melodic black-death between Naglfar and At The Gates, up to the dull fading of the song.
“Chiesa Dell'Alba”, for its part, dates back to the “URSA” sessions and brings with it an arpeggiated and redundant incipit, marked by bell tolling and heavy tears; then a second arpeggio and the rhythmic session arrives to introduce Orlando's clean verses: it is a piece that strikes deeply, until it comes to life in a 4/4 in an evolutionary crescendo, with Croscenko leading the advance and the extrication between continuous metallic comings and goings; when the piece seems to end in a delicate and dreamy way, here is the brilliant surprise, that is, an almost anguished and very tense restart, where the band goes at full speed towards an infinite evening.

So how can we summarize Novembre's new work in a few words? Well, the guys are there, the songs too, it will take multiple listens to assimilate them all well, but “Words Of Indigo”, while remaining far from the group's major masterpieces, presents itself as a mature, balanced, well-finished and, once again, winning album. Let's just hope that, as they say on these occasions, and especially now that the official lineup is rejuvenated and seems to be well cemented, we don't have to wait another nine years for new music.