Alright. It looks like Novarupta‘s latest concoction, Astral Sands, is the last partition of a four-piece journey into fantasyland, meaning the infamous four elements. Yes, the ones used by pagan religions of the past and present to great effect all over the world.
And the RMR crew missed that particular boat completely. And quite unsurprisingly so. Their latest piece, Carrion Movements, turned out to be an instrumental concoction and was thus brutally ignored. Rulez are to be obeyed after all!
This time around, Novarupta covers the earth element, so we are told, with Astral Sands featuring music with a voice again. But it’s also vocals with a quirk. The album boasts a different singer for each track on the wordy tracks. Apparently, to transform each song into an individual experience. Yet somehow, the RMR crew failed to get the pointe of the joke here. If anything, the record suffers from a lack of cohesion. A bunch of tracks strung together helter-skelter. An impression that the band probably didn’t intend to generate.
To illustrate further, the Rolodex carousel of ever-changing vocalists has been used to great effect in parts of Power Metal. But there, the individual tracks were carefully crafted to suit the mood and the abilities of the individual songbird on offer here. Astral Sands, in contrast, has the ever-changing vocal styles propped onto an amalgamation of a somewhat uniformly dronish background noise. And that started to scrape on our metal bones after a while.
In other words, the band disperses a load of Alternative Metal, a mix with a strong stake in traditional and gothic doom. Alcest, the smokier parts of Final Coil, Dawnwalker, and the melancholy of Tiamat. They all come to mind when listening to the atmospherically challenged, sludgy, load of wispy rock and metal on offer here. In a way, the band forever circles back to places they’ve already visited before. Sure, you find subtle changes whenever they do that. But it’s never enough to really make a difference in the endless wastes of uniform volcanic refuse.
On the other hand, Astral Sands‘ same, same, but similar display of darkly foreboding emotion is sturdily done, too. There’s true power in the tightly written cranky drone riot on display. Sludgy guitar, powerful drum work that maxes out the capacity of your earphones, and an overabundance of synth work will make you go for seconds. And that creates a powerful wall of sound that, with all its subdued ferocious power, will always allow for these smooth transitions where reflections of Post Metal and ambient musings dwell in full force. Said differently, Novarupta‘s latest surely features shortcomings that rubbed us the wrong way. But their doom-laden musical prowess is emotive and of the first order.
So, where does this land us? Astral Sands won’t be winning any prizes over here. The overall delivery is just too mushy, and the almost monolithic plodding delivery didn’t find the Review Desk’s final approval. And yet. The acoustics on this album are delicate, raw, and embedded in powerfully huge soundscapes. The record boasts an alluring intensity with an abundance of powerful melancholy written straight into the script. A production that won’t lose any elements in the mix. And this, together with them tightly written tracks, turns any listening session of the piece into a memorable experience.
In the end, there is mastery in this concoction, make no mistake. I’d only wish they’d have tweaked this shebang a bit better to get to greatness. But for some reason, Novarupta lost this crew somewhere in the dark grey boonies. That said, we’re almost sorry that we couldn’t love the record more than we did.
Well, perhaps next time. If there will be one, that is.
Record Rating: 5/10 | Label: Suicide Records | Web: Official Band Site
Release Date: 14 February 2025