November's Doom is one of the bands that have been around for more than ten years. Yet they have never achieved to be accepted by the metal music masses. The reasons are obvious, at least for my eyes. The various changes during the history of the band never gave them peace and helped the audience to monitor their development. Novembers Doom are "label nomads"; from Avantgarde to Martyr Music Group and then to Dark Symphonies. Their new home, the American The End Records, seems that supports the music efficiently enough to let them dream of a future DVD release.

The other and most profound reason is the fact that their music was never easily identifiable and attributable to them. In their music you could recognize an underlying endeavour to reach to originality, however the result was always comparable to something else. Lastly the gradual changes that occurred in their music never helped the people to categorize them and feel safe when they referred to them. Although most of us put on the band the label "doom metal", because of their prior musical direction, the band tries to be released from this term and to prove that can do better and more.

In "The Pale Haunt Departure" their music is somewhere between My Dying Bride ("Like Gods of The Sun"), very early Anathema ("Serenades") and late Opeth ("Still Life"). This practically means that what you are about to listen to is nothing else than powerful and technical death metal, which combines diverse elements, like torturing riffs, dark melodies, ethereal acoustic guitars, growling and clean vocals.

The main problem of "The Pale Haunt Departure" is already mentioned. "The Pales Haunt Departure" is faultless and the composing abilities of the band are respected and acknowledged, but the overall result brings forth remembrances of other bands.

"The Pale Haunt Departure" is virtually divided in two sub-parts. The first one includes the most rushing and dynamic tracks, while the second (possibly most favourable for the doom metal fans) is including some very painful tunes, like "The Dead Leafs Echo" and the outstanding "Collapse of the Fallen Throne".

Mixed by the legendary figure Dan Swano (who also contributes with a guitar solo in one of "The Pales Haunt Departure" highlights, "Dark World Burden") and mastered by James Murphy this release has a compact and very balanced production that illustrates in detail every aspect of the band. The cover is made by Attila Kis and believe me it's one of the best works of digital art that my eyes enjoyed recently.

I do not know if "The Pale Haunt Departure" will help the band to gain more attention. I truly wish them to do so, but on the other hand I think that the band is destined to be forever underground and their music to be circulated between a few and eclectic people.