It takes a lot of balls to put the music you play right in your name: sometimes it works (see: Death) and sometimes it doesn’t (see: the Rockstar Mayhem Festival, which confusingly decides not to include the black metal band with whom they share a name in its roster year after year, or even Methods of Mayhem). Novembers Doom claim ownership of the necessary balls, though: they’re slow, menacing, classy doom metal with a well-integrated melodeth twist, managing to pique interest even in their most dull moments. Their latest, Into Night’s Requiem Infernal, is the sort of well-crafted metal that can only come from a band that’s been at it for two decades (albeit with a few lineup shifts), admirable even to those that aren’t affected by the material. Dark without becoming meandering and epic without overstaying its welcome, the album is a fine slab of doom, perhaps perfect for those sick of ambient post-funeral doom sludge and just want their gloomy brethren to cut to the point.

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