Album Review: Soulburn - Noa's D'ark
Reviewed by Neil Bolton
There is a spirit of doom and a phantom of black metal held within Soulburns new album 'Noa’s D'ark'. The album title is a reference to the works of Nietzsche and lyrically deals with subjects such as sex, religion, magic, love, and death. Although this may strike you as the normal fare for a metal album; this album is far from the norm.
A familiar “My Dying Bride” sounding guitar riff opening the album greets the listener. It’s a slow atmospheric funeral type moment that burns along until the similarly dark vocals kick in along with the rest of the band. It’s a doomy pulse that wonderfully builds on the atmosphere already created. Further into this opener 'The Morgue Of Hope' we get a glimpse of black metal through the cremation curtain displaying this bands talent of more than one genre.
As with most types of metal, well music in general, the vocals can make or break a record. In this case the vocal ability of Twan van Geel makes this band for me. It’s powerful and demands attention; it’s dark and punky and holds far more substance than a growl or grunt. The music is also as impressive; tracks such as 'Anerchrist' are more on the black metal edge, but are still well crafted songs not relying a four minute blast beat to carry the tune.
Throughout the album the bass is loud in the mix, and the recording benefits from it, helping to generate the dark, dirty atmosphere that is never lost even with genre mixing from punk to metal, doom to black. The guitars are not left behind in this collection of raw and polished tracks, we visit the buzzing chain saw feeling along with slow riffs and anthemic heights.
Marc Verhaar on drums is skilled and confident enough in his abilities to add more to a tune than a background percussion noise.
'From Archaeon Into Oblivion' brings the album to a close, with a haunting choral chant swirling around the heart of this song, adding another layer again to the mix. You could say this track sums up Soulburn as a band, and it’s a perfect example of their many musical skills.
2020 has been a shit-bucket year for live music, but on the other hand studio recorded music has presented many triumphs; the release of this record, this late in the year, throws a spanner in the works to any one who wishes to compile a top ten of this year’s output.
It’s a nice problem to have.
ICYMI - Check out our interview with Eric and Twan from Soulburn here.
