Noein - Infection - Erasure - Replacement (2013) (5/10)

NOEIN is a quite unique newcomer band from Rouen in Upper Normandy, France that just released its first full length release entitled “Infection – Erasure – Replacement”. Musically, I would describe the band as a Technical Death Metal band. The two women and three men work a lot with dark and industrial atmospheres, fast and pitiless riffs and the powerful female growls that make of course think of a band like ARCH ENEMY.

The first album is a conceptual release about a post-apocalyptic world in which a pitiless corporation produces masses of clones that start to control the remains of humanity that finally starts to fight back the system in an epic war to save its faith. There is no doubt that the topic is really intriguing. The atmosphere is definitely appropriated to the topic on this release. The lyrics are interesting as well but you have to read them with the help of a booklet as the vocals are pretty much incomprehensive.

The problem is that the topic seems a little bit overambitious to me for a newcomer. NOEIN clearly didn’t choose the easy way out and it’s impressive that they wanted to break new grounds from the beginning on. The thing is that the whole concept in intellectually appealing but musically extremely hard to digest and to follow. Of course, there is a guiding line in form of the atmosphere and the whole album is divided into three or four sections introduced by short and not very appealing instrumentals.

The opening instrumental “I – E – R” is definitely too long and complex to start an album with for example. The song simply goes straight nowhere for me. After less than two minutes, I already wanted to skip to the next track because the opening song is even the longest piece of music on here with a running time of over five minutes. Picking a track like this as an opener is commercial suicide and also an error if you pretend to not have any commercial purposes which of course isn’t true. Any band wants to get new fans and sell its music to them. The potential new fan might though get a negative impression right from the start with this kind of opener. The entire album is so atmospheric and conceptually orientated that it simply doesn’t need some sort of introduction to get you in the right mood. To keep it short: this opener is completely useless.

When I tell you that this whole piece of art is quite challenging I mean that the single songs often sound quite alike. They don’t include any hooks in form of catchy choruses, any engaging melodies or any surprising breaks. There is nothing you can fix on. There are no highlights. There aren’t any outstanding passages. Apart of the atmosphere and the concept, there isn’t much in here. The album simply rushes by and you don’t have the choice but to listen to the whole thing in one shot which can become quite annoying after a while. It seems to me that the band focused so much on the concept that they forgot about the song writing for each track on here.   

Even though the musical and lyrical concept of the band is interesting and maybe even rather innovative or let’s say unorthodox for a newcomer band the music itself is of an average quality at best. This band has lots of ideas and talent but they were not yet able to work on their potential on a professional basis. This release sounds somewhat inapproachable and even though the band probably wanted to introduce the world to such a cold and distant universe, it’s just plain wrong to put out such a radical and at some point even closed-minded first effort. Intellectually, NOEIN are truly open-minded but musically and professionally they are quite closed-minded. That’s why this record feels so weird. I guess only a few metal maniacs might adore this kind of music but those who do so might probably praise this release as their new bible. Anyone else and I talk about a clear majority can give this release an open-minded try but shouldn’t expect too much and is probably better off skipping this release in the end.

(Online May 28, 2013)