If you’re looking for Canada’s answer to Inter Arma, look no further than Calgary-based outfit Numenorean. Their debut album Home encapsulates the epic, blackened, extended post-sludge forays of the Virginians’ Sky Burial, with five tracks spanning just shy of 45 minutes.
The nine-minute title track opens the proceedings on a swirling, NeurIsian note, before the blast beats come raining down about 90 seconds in. Tis but a brief burst of black metal, mind you, before they drop the tempo completely into mellow post-rock territory. The next big flourish, around the three-minute mark, actually sounds more screamo than black metal, with some blast-beats bisecting a couple of brighter, angular passages. The slower section toward the end certainly recalls Inter Arma in its finely blended blackened doom attack.
“Thirst” dives right into the blast beats and staccato picking right from the get-go, before mellowing out past the two-minute mark. Another blackened barrage begins a couple minutes later, and while the vocals remain bilious, the riffs take a more atmospheric turn somewhere around the four-minute mark. After ending on a softer note, we get a three-minute instrumental interlude that meanders along in post-rock territory, setting the stage for the two lengthy epics that close this one out.
“Devour” is also very reminiscent of Inter Arma, combining soaring sludgy vocals, swirling riffs and pulsating black-metal drumming. There are a few tempo changes throughout, the slower passages tapping a similar vein to Neurosis, while some of these faster riffs wouldn’t sound outta place in power metal—if you isolated them from the pure-evil rhythm section. The atmospheric riff combined with the blackened vocal around the six-minute mark completely captures what this sound is about…but I still think I prefer Sky Burial.
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