Italian masters of doom Novembre are back today with the second single from their new album Words Of Indigo, set for release on Peaceville on 7th November. Speaking about the new track, titled ‘House Of Rain’, songwriter Carmelo Orlando shared –
“The moment the main motif of ‘House Of Rain’ poured out, I knew we had something special. It’s not the kind of theme you stumble upon every day. It’s an instant sing-along and had to be handled with special care if we didn’t want it to go to waste on a two-bit tune. That’s why we decided to put extra effort into putting this track together. Once it was done, I felt it needed another vocal line an octave higher to go along with mine. That’s where the idea of female vocals came in. Luckily, one of my all-time favourite singers, Ann-Mari Edvardsen, ex-singer of the Norwegian legends The 3rd and the Mortal—with whom we had already collaborated years ago on the album Novembrine Waltz—had just moved to my hometown in Sicily. It only felt natural to give her a call and suggest a second collaboration, which, to my surprise, she happily accepted. So I flew back to Sicily to meet her in a studio, and that’s where the magic happened.
Then the band was phenomenal, the rhythm section thundering ahead like a train, and the central solo lifted the piece to soaring heights.
And like something out of a fate-driven novel, it all came together—Ann-Mari, my return to the old country—and the lyrics could only be about an old house, the houses we leave behind, and the silence they must have carried all those years without us kids tearing through its rooms. Do they miss us? Do they feel lonely?”
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Novembre by Giacomo Mearelli
Aural Aggravation 
Watch: ‘Murder White Noise’ by Sword Tongue
Posted: 29 October 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPsTags: alt rock, Anxiety, commentary, Murder White Noise, Single, Stream, stress, Sword Tongue, true crime, Video
Oakland alt-rock trio Sword Tongue presents ‘Murder White Noise’, a wry commentary on the state of the world and our attempts to soothe ourselves to get through it. The latest offering from their explosive Bonfire In The Tempest EP – their fourth to date.
In an increasingly stressful world, this song explores how people try to externalize their anxieties by consuming content that allows them to feel better about their own lives. We attempt to cope with the pressure of maintaining equilibrium by coming together to grieve, worry, and comfort each other, often finding that the only way to feel good about our lives is to reflect on others’ misfortunes.
Creating dark music for dark times, Sword Tongue is vocalist Jennifer Wilde and guitarist Gaetano Maleki, a husband and wife who launched this project in the pandemic year of 2020, now joined by renowned drummer-producer Dan Milligan.
“I started consuming true crime content as a way to turn off the thoughts that kept me awake at night and distracted me during the day. One day I told a friend I was a listening to a livestreamed trial where a lady put her husband on a burn pile. She said “WHOAH, what is that, murder white noise?” As I told people about the song, I found many others watch crime stories as a release from their stressful lives. It is important to bring that into the conversation about how we are coping today,” says Jennifer Wilde.
“Finding comfort in tragedy is new for me; during the pandemic and especially in the last year I find myself needing to look for reassurance that whatever I am facing is not as bad as it could be. ‘Murder White Noise’ was written as a way to come to grips that someone else’s pain is that content, and what that says about where we are as a society right now. Gaetano wrote the perfect guitar line that hooks you in to get to the truth of the song.”
On ‘Murder White Noise’, soothing vocals contrast with the song’s macabre lyrical content, while steadily thrumming instrumentation lulls you into a false sense of security. For a moment, the listener feels heard and encouraged, then questions their own motivations, left to wonder whether they are now the tragic victim in this story.
”From a songwriting perspective, this pulled a lot of anxiety out of me,” says Gaetano Maleki. “While writing the guitar and bass lines, I wanted to bring out tension to mirror the vocals, but with some kind of seductive undertones. I feel the instruments really complement the lyrics, like a hard boiled soundtrack.”
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