Search - Nomen Novum :: November

Much like how Merriweather Post Pavilion has set the bar very high for 2009 albums on a nationwide level, Nomen Novum s debut full-length, November, may very well end up being the best album to come out of Atlanta this year. For those of you who are not in the know, Nomen Novum is currently made up of two thirds of the now defunct Moorish Idols. The only official record that Moorish Idols released during their tenure was a self-titled EP. That album was our favourite EP from 2007, and I really can t recommend it enough. The brainchild of both bands, David Norbery, disbanded Moorish Idols and decided to start over fresh to better express his vision. He focused his attention on his solo project called Nomen Novum, which is literally Latin for New Name . I was honestly a bit skeptical at first about the change of direction because I loved the old incarnation so much, but I underestimated one of Atlanta s best sonic artists. November is a matured, less restrained effort than Moorish Idols, and manages to expand on all of the magic and brilliance that made me a fan in the first place. What is also interesting about the album is that it is actually a bit of a relic in relation to where Nomen Novum is musically right now. Over the course of last year, the project went from being a full band, to a solo act, to finally a duo comprised of Norbery and fellow Moorish Idols veteran Mark Godfrey. For the better part of last year, Nomen Novum abandoned the guitar driven approach found on November and moved in a loop based direction. At the beginning of this year, the two gathered a small group of close friends in an empty room and recorded the performance. The resulting EP is called Room For Rent and was released for free digitally around the same time they released November. The two releases are almost polar opposite sorts of records. As the band travels farther and farther away from their Moorish Idols roots, there is something truly astonishing about an artist that can continue to redefine themselves and the resulting art continue to be consistently excellent. Davy Minor