On My Playlist: Top 5 Novelists songs

Bonjour! Straight out of Paris, France comes one of the metalcore/progressive metal’s newest and most exciting bands for this week’s playlist.
The band uses various melodic elements in their songs that give them a full visceral texture – something not regularly seen in the genre. Novelists have released two full-length albums, with their latest album, Noir taking a more melodic and progressive approach. The band currently consists of Matt Gelsomino – vocals, Florestan Durand – guitar Amael Durand – drums, Charly Kelevra – guitar and Nicolas Delestrade – bass.
Honourable mentions: ‘Echoes’, ‘Voyager’, ‘Gravity’, ‘A Travers le Memoir’, ‘Monochrome’.
5. A Bitter End
One of the band’s earlier number showcases them at their more ferocious before their recent change in musical style. This is by no means a bad thing and presents enough highlights of Gelsomino’s epic vocal abilities. Thundering guitars open this track and, in true metalcore fashion, harsh screams from Gelsomino follow suit and you can feel his emotion and anger in his delivery of the lyrics. The chorus is also one of the highlights here.

4. Under Different Welkins
This fantastic track on their new album showcases the band’s brilliant dual guitar work as Durand and Kelevra play a tasty lead guitar part to open up the song before Gelsomino’s sultry clean vocals take over. One of the impressive aspects of this band is how Gelsomino shifts between clean and unclean vocals and this song is a perfect example of this. This is a piece of artistic brilliance from Novelists and deserves praise for its musical structure that keeps the song interesting.

3. Souvenirs
‘Souvenirs’ takes everything that is good from Novelists and puts it into one package of awesome music. The soft and melodic instrumental intro sends you on a journey before the djent inspired guitar riff and screams from Gelsomino take you into overdrive.
This is definitely one of my favourite intros from this band to date and the scene in general. The breakdown and ‘bleh’ scream from Gelsomino are also one of the best parts. This track takes a delightful detour halfway through as it goes back to a softer instrumental that breaks up the pace. Some intelligent songwriting both musically and lyrically is found in this superb track: ‘I’ve got my dreams and all my memories in my head. I don’t wanna be the one who can live without this. All that I can see is the distance since these days.I wouldn’t recognise myself without the mess of what I’ve done with my life.’ Another aspect that finishes this song off nicely is the guitar solo. Pure bliss to the eardrums.

2. Joie de Vivre
The interesting lead parts are what get your attention right from the outset and keep sticking in your head.
The softer side of this band is what comes to the fore here and just shows its versatility to a tee.
The cleans in the chorus combined with a catchy guitar riff and guest vocals from ERRA’s Jesse Cash really take the song to the next level. The outro is also one of the best parts with its electronic feel combined with the clean guitar parts.

1. The Light, The Fire
This is Novelists’ true masterpiece that includes some brilliant clean vocals and exquisite musical elements combined with emotive lyrics.
Durand’s drumming is really unique and impeccable on this track and really stands at the forefront.
The opening beat and some of the fills on the snare and toms are pure bliss. The use of down-tuned guitar mixed with clean lead guitar parts and piano create a real textural sound that brings everything together perfectly.
The mix of clean and screams vocals is also first class as they bounce off each other in a truly complementary manner.