It’s no exaggeration to say that the debut album from melodeath thrashers Ardent Nova was a longtime in the making. Decades, in fact. The project, manned by multi-instrumentalist Mike Pardi (Empty Throne, ex-Draconis), began as Pagan Thunder 22 years ago, but never took flight. Members came and went and eventually a name change to Ardent Nova resulted. Though others are credited with some of the songwriting, AN’s debut was performed by Pardi (guitar/bass/vocals/keys) and Ryan Gallagher (drums) and a couple guests.
And the music? The California duo’s self-titled effort is a sturdy, majestic collision of melody and aggression, not unlike Amon Amarth thrusting swords with Iron Maiden. Pardi growls through eight chugging gallopers that invoke all the best parts of ’90s melodic death metal—twin guitars blazing and a ripping rhythm section.
Ardent Nova was arranged and engineered by Gary Miranda. It was recorded at Studio West and Warrior Recording Studio by Gary Miranda and Mike Pardi between 2012 and 2022 and mixed by Andreas Linnemann at Hop House Studio in 2022. It’s set for release on March 17 on vinyl and CD via Wise Blood Records.
Here’s what Pardi had to say about the debut:
“It’s quite a relief to finally release all these songs after so many years. For a long while I really thought the material would never see the light of day. There were so many obstacles, and lack of effort from some (but not all) previous members. The songs were really meant to have clean vocals, I could just never find anyone, even when I offered to pay. Just lots of headaches, and yet I felt the material had so much potential. And to be clear, a majority of the songs were reworked at least once, and I trashed more material than what ended up on the record. I just hope people like listening as much as I enjoyed writing and recording. It was a labor of love for sure.”
The post Full Album Stream: Ardent Nova – ‘Ardent Nova’ appeared first on Decibel Magazine.
