Noumena
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Yet another gem to be mined from the Finnish metal scene, Noumena are purveyors of the fluid melodic death metal style that Amorphis ushered in 13 years ago with Tales From the Ten Thousand Lakes. Utilizing flowing guitar melodies, gruff vocals, intertwined with a morose atmosphere, Noumena have unearthed a pair of near-perfect Finnish metal albums with 2005’s Absence, and their newest offering, Anatomy of Life.
Formed in the late 90’s in the Western Finland town of Ähtäri, Noumena was a virtual unknown on these shores and elsewhere until they were picked up by the mighty Spinefarm Records imprint, Spikefarm Records. Bassist Hannu Savolainen explains Absence is the natural starting point for Noumena’s evolution.
“Absence was our first album that was promoted, released and distributed properly, at least compared to our scale that time. It raised people’s awareness about Noumena in Finland as well as abroad. We received lots of good reviews and feedback. We played more gigs than ever before in Finland and also toured in Germany and Austria in April 2006. Since the release of Absence, our guitarists had written new material and shortly after our Euro tour we went to Studio Sundi Coop to forge our next album.”
Now in a perpetual logjam with their equally mighty labelmates in Rapture, Ensiferum, Norther, and Swallow the Sun, the band is motivated behind the idea of being on such an influential label, although as one could imagine, the band is just one of a dozen priority acts for Spinefarm.
“Spinefarm and its division Spikefarm are highly respected and well known in metal scene,” acknowledges Savolainen. When a band has a deal with Spinefarm, it is almost a guaranteed of certain quality. Spikefarm has good distribution channels and great connections inside music industry - of course it helps us. Naturally, being on a Finnish label makes communication easier for us. But on the other hand, there are lots of bands in Spinefarm. You really have to work hard to get special attention.”
Brandished with a compelling, hand-painted picture of a young girl tending to a skeleton on the shores with a crow hovering about, the cover art for Anatomy of Life is open to a wide array of interpretations, thus, setting the album up for something even more intriguing according to Savolainen.
“The cover is a mixture of natural and macabre feeling in my opinion. It represents a scene that is totally realistic but annoying in the same time. Confronting depressing and anxious sides of life is something we can’t run away from. The cover coheres with the album title and lyrical themes. We wanted to have some sort of a distinguishable cover. The majority of album covers are nowadays so-called digital art and digitally created art may look wonderful, but you can easily get fed up with it. That is why we decided to have either a photograph or a painting on the cover. You can’t really go wrong with an actual painting.”
As for what’s inside, one must point to “Burden of Solacement,” a driving, rocking tune propelled by one of the most seamless and melodically captivating melodies to emerge from Finnish metal as being the trademark Noumena track. For Savolainen, the song in question was the benefactor of chance inspiration from guitarist Tuukka Tuomela.
“This might be a cliché, but Tuukka composed it in one go, when the inspiration stroke. It has great melody, enough headbanging and a good curve of drama. Writing the lyrics is quite a painful process, but this time I had a clear vision and it came down pretty easily. The lyrics are about mental problems, how devastating those are and how difficult they are to deal with. We played this song on gigs before studio session and it proved to be a killer tune.”
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