2007 saw Noctis release their debut CD "For Future's Past", and it quickly received a fair bit of attention locally and over east. It was bound to, as it is a vastly different EP to anything else to come out of Perth. In this city of extreme metal bands of vitually every conceivable genre, this particular take on metal was relatively unexplored locally, and I suspect that it is because it is a risky thing to write in a style that is going to be compared at every level with one of the World's most successful metal bands......
Nope fuck it, I'm just gonna have to say this and get it over with. This is an Opeth album that Opeth didn't write. The open chord styling and - shock horror - actually REAL chords being used rather than power chords, the combination of clean and death vocals, the passages of dendritic and interweaving guitar melody work, the somber and overall moodiness of the entire EP.... it's all there and it is Opethy to the point of Opethalisation. Oh don't get me wrong, there ARE elements to "For Futures' Past that are Noctis's own, and we will discuss it further, but this IS the distilled essence of Opeth, brewed and bottled. You can smoke me all you like, but I'm convinced that this IS the lost Opeth album, and not a bad one either. Noctis have no doubt more influences than I could list, but the similarities between that Opeth and Noctis are manifold and the influence indisputable, may lightning strike me dead if it isn't.
The thing is, there are Opeth songs I love, "Godhead's Lament", "the Drapery Falls", "the Grand Conjuration" are to me three unbelievable songs, but I find it hard to listen to an entire Opeth album in a sitting as their sad melodic style is not psychotic enough to keep me enthralled for long. For this reason I believe it only fair to say that Noctis may not be getting as fair and well-rounded a review from me as they would from a headbanger with a better understanding of the genre. Despite my ghastly metal pedigree, I shall try to do two things here:
1. Be as well-rounded (musically speaking, you arseholes) and open minded as I can.
2. Try and finish this review without saying the "O" word again.
Right from the beginning of this EP the mood is set, with Sam teasing a simple and delightfully melancholic melody out of a piano. It is joined with strings dripping with a beautific grief and some very subtle symbal work that bullds toward a crescendo of sorts, as it plows headlong into the second track, "Rememberance of Death". Hard it is to descibe this song without using a forbidden word, so I will say simply that it is well written, as the depressed and gloomy feel is overlaid with darker emotions, rage overrunning the sadness at times to create an feel of paranoid delusion and schizoid despair.
Song 3 "Of Emptiness" displays a new dimension of Noctis as the band delivers a heavier feel and the vocals go to the opposite extreme, clean and laden with two-part harmonies. I am constantly stunned by the talent pool of musicianship in this city, and Noctis are blessed in this recording with two gifted vocallists. Despite the very proficient musicianship of everyone involved throughout "For Future's Past", it is this vocal collaberation that lifts Noctis up and gives them some much-needed uniqueness. A band with a young and talented group of metal musicians, there is a strange blend of youthful energy and horrible adolescent depression going on here, and nowhere else on this EP is that contest as obvious as on the fourth song "Eternities Worth", where everyone seems to just give vent to their own personal woes, the bleakness just pours forth.
This EP isn't an collection of individual moments of brilliance, it is more orchestrated than than, they compliment each other nicely without anyone being a dominant force. There seems to be a message in the music here, something they are trying to tell us... if so, it isn't going to be particularly cheerful. Well, If desolation and suffocating sorrow are your thing - or you need a new album by this other band you might have heard of - , Noctis may be just what you need. At only 29 minutes of length and cunningly designed to slide easily from song to song seamlessly, "For Future's Past" is over just when you start to get into it, but a pretty good listen all the same. It isn't really fresh or innovative music, but the more I listened to it, the more I liked it, it seems to grow on you with each listen. Sadly, since the recording of "For Future's Past" the lineup is vastly altered, the entire sound of Noctis has been changed and who can say what their next album release will sound like?
A good start here from the boys, even if they probably ought have spelt Noctis with an capital O.
Review by Jez.
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