Holos by Nomera

From the warm shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the warm shores of the Gulf of Mexico ... we are all the same in our love of instrumental metal music, am I right? So when the guys in Nomera asked me to spin their latest album Holos you know I was keen to do so. Stream the album from Bandcamp and read Fuzzy Cracklin's album review of the progressive instrumental metal album Holos by Nomera after the jump...




For those of you more into the stoner and doom end of the metal spectrum, be sure to give Holos a spin. Yes, it's a little faster than the typical metal album. And there are some progressive things going on here with the time changes and alternative melodies. But I can assure you, these five tracks play out for an extended listening session just like the best stoner albums. Just hit PLAY and kick back.

Of course, you won't be going to sleep. No, instead the men in Nomera will keep you awake with half an hour of prog metal that does a lot more than just keep your interest. When this EP is done, you will be glad you had the REPEAT button already pushed so that it plays itself over again.

Holos starts out with the shortly-titled V. And I mean it really starts right off. There are not soft and subdued intros here. It opens with a riff and goes from there. It's high-energy and all-metal, with some keys laid over the top. Great track to open the album with.

Nomera

Nilo is the next track. It starts off a little slower than V, but that doesn't last long. Before you know it, it is jamming and riffing and the drums are beating like crazy. And you notice that this song is quite different from the first so I am hoping there is going to be a nice variety on this album.....

Yep, we are getting variety here. Oceanus in Arca is the third track. It opens with the drums, then the bass jumps in, and finally the guitars add to the machine guns that are blowing your ears away. But just before your ears start to bleed, it cools down a little and the keyboards soothe things a little. About half way through, it gets downright trippy with the synths, too. This might be my favorite track on the album.

If there a song to be called "slow" on this list, it would be Sunstone. But really, none of the tracks on here are slow or quiet. Sunstone starts off a little slower than the others, but it gets going and has some great guitar work, too. There is a definite method to how the tracks are laid out and this is a great album to play from start to finish without skipping around.

Holos ends with Horizonte which wraps it up with another attack of guitars and drums, with a great change mid-song which serves to bring the album to a resounding conclusion. Wow, this has been quite a trip.

One thing about an EP is that you can't really hide any bad tracks. When there is only thirty minutes of music, how do you expect to hide 5 or 6 minutes of boring music? And on Holos, Nomera have nothing but high-energy quality songs for your progressive enjoyment.

What a great set of tracks Holos is. Solid energy all the way through, with a variety of styles in the songs which makes you want to play the whole set all over again. Fans of instrumental metal will like this, and fans of progressive metal will love it. Listen for yourself and support Nomera on Bandcamp.

A quick bio of the band -- Nomera formed in 2017. They are: David Hernandez on drums, Aleksey Stepanov aka John Base on bass, Vicente Roca and Jose Jurado on guitars.