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Label: Big Nothing - Rating:
In the second installment of the "Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy" series, space travellers Arthur Dent and Ford Perfect met a man named Hotblack Desiato, the lead singer of the band Disaster Area. Disaster Area is the loudest band in the universe, so loud that the audiences at their shows must be thirty-seven miles away in a concrete bunker for their own safety. Disaster Area’s massive stage shows finish with a space ship being crashed into the sun.
I say that to say this: If you are a band called Nova, your music should sound a little like a spaceship crashed into the sun. With their new record Nepenthe, the California based five piece band makes that happen.
The drumming of Rob Bujak kicks off the opening track, entitled “Supersonic Vagabond.” The strong vocals of Gabriel McGahee and the driving layers of guitar from Nick Young and Aaron Goforth, send home early what Nova is trying to accomplish with their sound: hard hitting tracks, strong guitar licks, and screaming vocals. My favorite guitar riff comes in on the fifth track, “Perfect Mistake.” The opening guitar part has a tinge of a classic rock riff, destined to be popular with head bangers and moshers countrywide as soon as they hear it.
There are two obvious measures of what makes a rock band successfully hard. The first is screaming, tantamount to hitting the high octaves by a songstress like Whitney Houston. The second: Going soft. The power ballad has been around as long as there has been rock music. Nova nails the screaming early and often, and Nepenthe goes soft just as well. “Our Last Goodbye,” the record’s sixth track, is part love song, part lament, and all slow power rock.
Nepenthe gets back to the roaring guitars, screaming vocals, and thundering drum lines for the second half of the record. The final four tracks of the album highlight, in different ways, what Nova does best, play loud and scream. “House Of Nepenthe,” goes slow and heavy, and loud of course. “3 Little Words,” is the albums darkest sounding track, due to the ripping opening bass line from Scott Procter.
“The Letter,” Nepenthe’s final song, takes the level down a notch to close out. Not so low to reach ballad status, but soft and slow enough for the listener to take a breath. There are no exploding planets at the end of Nova’s Nepenthe. There is, however, enough explosive sound on the record for me to applaud the choice of the band name Nova, and not something less dynamic like Ray of Sunshine.
Like Nova? Check out: System of a Down, Metallica, Incubus
