Last week I already reviewed the debut album of Predella Avant. The cd I have in front of me right now is more of a little treat to visitors of the recent Thorns of Avalon festival, being limited to only 25 copies. This festival was held in the city of Nijmegen, hence the title “Noviomagus” (Noviomagum is latin for Nijmegen). Again all tracks are untitled and there is no information on the sleeve of this mysterious act. Compared to the previous album, this release shows an even greater variety of sounds. “Noviomagus” again sounds quite bombastic and orchestral, with a fairly great stress on heavy drumming. There are also some nice ambient tracks preesnt.
The first song sounds like a medieval marching tune, with dense percussion and a bagpipe which leads the melody. Track 2 starts with a fierce shouting, followed by a great bombastic Blutharsch-type hymn. The third song continues in a rather militant matter, with warlike chants, but this is counterparted by atmospheric ambient elements. A nice tranquil, moody composition is the fourth one, with lovely sampled female vocals. The next few songs continue this combination of of bombastic orchestral and more soft atmospheric elements, with sometimes surprising samples. Towards the end the cd gets a more ambient, with various tranquil pieces. The seventh track is one of the highlights of “Noviomagus”, a mixture of a sacral Cold Meat mood and more exotic elements.
Again a convincing collection of powerful tracks. I hope the best of them will be made available to a greater audience one day…
