captain_crunchy
Beautiful and engrossing - plays like the soundtrack of an imagined quest. For dreamers, pirates, and adventurers of all stripes.
Favorite track: The Summit (Part II).
Leterren
This album is truly like nothing I've heard before. A beautiful marriage of prog, folk, classical, black metal, and a dozen other influences spun into something totally unique.
Favorite track: Dance of the Mountain People.
Stéphane Gallay
Au final, An Embarrassment of Riches est assez fidèle à son titre: quand c’est bien, c’est très bien. Le mélange rock/violon au service d’une bande-son instrumentale épique est impressionnant. Mais on a un peu l’impression que The Night Watch essaye d’en faire trop et se perd dans des idées qui ne sont pas si bonnes que ça. Ça reste néanmoins un album qui mérite le détour. (Chroniqué sur alias.erdorin.org)Favorite track: The Summit (Part I).
Rouge Absolu
This is a brilliant, very unique and refreshing release, so much so that I find myself wanting to get immersed in it as soon as I stop listening to it. You will find both soul crushing and uplifting melodies. The composition is brilliant. Get this.
Favorite track: Telling Brow and Tongue Root.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download comes with a 20 page digital booklet featuring custom artwork for each song by Alice Duke as well as original poetic interpretations
Purchasable with gift card
$10CAD or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Beautiful gatefold pressing of "An Embarrassment of Riches" with accompanying book featuring custom artwork for each song by Alice Duke as well as original poetic interpretations
Includes unlimited streaming of An Embarrassment of Riches
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
The Night Watch are proud to present their third full-length opus An Embarrassment of Riches, an instrumental conceptual epic of depth and scope that represents the culmination of years of painstaking work. The story loosely follows a nameless explorer who finds themselves shipwrecked on a seemingly deserted island. Much like the looming peaks adorning the gorgeous cover (courtesy of artist Alice Duke) An Embarrassment of Riches is a towering and richly detailed journey through external and internal landscapes, where post/progressive/black/doom and folk metal weave their way through a tapestry of post-rock/folk/jazz and classical textures. To take their sonic storytelling to even greater heights, the band collaborated with famed visual artist Costin Chioreanu (Opeth/Emperor/Wardruna) who animated a stunning video for The Summit (Part I). From cavernous valleys of solitude and paranoia, to soaring peaks of transcendence and affirmation, the turmoil and triumph one would imagine facing on an isolated land mass are herein expressed through harrowing tales of dynamic sound, carrying listeners on a wordless journey to the root, and summit, of human experience.
credits
released November 15, 2019
“It may seem nigh impossible for an instrumental, highly acoustic album that includes a violin as one of the key instruments to make the end of year list for best progressive metal releases. Yet the emotionally evocative playground that The Night Watch craft in their thundering drums that roll like waves, and thoughtful guitar riffs that cut like knives, truly strike to the heart of what makes metal so breathtaking.”
- Sonic Perspectives Top 15 progressive Metal Albums of 2019
"An Embarrassment of Riches is a towering achievement not only for The Night Watch, but for the instrumental progressive metal subgenre as a whole."
- Metal Injection
"The Night Watch named their third LP An Embarrassment of Riches, and it’s exactly that: a wealth of musical treasure."
- Decibel Magazine
"Do yourself a favor and check out one of the best modern prog bands out right now."
- Progressive Music Planet
"...you’ll be rewarded with some cinematic vistas as beautiful and foreboding as the cover art."
- Metalsucks
“…the writing and musicianship are both consistently excellent throughout the album…”
- Angry Metal Guy
“…rich, complex, and beguiling…”
- Heavy Blog Is Heavy
"...beautifully orchestrated...this project is able to maintain that organic beauty while also pulling off some impressive musical feats."
- The Needle Drop (Best songs of the week 9/29)
"The band master a variety of sonic colors and An Embarrassment Of Riches is so replete with sparkling musical ideas that it is essentially... an embarrassment of riches."
- Two Metal Guys
Written and Performed by The Night Watch
Evan Runge – Violin
Nathanael Larochette – Guitars
Matthew Cowan – Fretless Bass
Daniel Mollema – Drums, Percussion, Piano
Guitars, drums, bass engineered by Topon Das at Apartment 2
Violin, vocals, percussion engineered by Dean Watson at The Gallery
“Currents” engineered and mixed by Dave Draves at Little Bullhorn
Mixed by Simon Larochette at The Sugar Shack
Mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side Music
Original artwork by Alice Duke
Design and layout by Isaac Valentin
Guest vocals by Xander Galbreath and Olivier Nordskip
Chorus – Evan Runge, Nathanael Larochette, Matthew Cowan, Daniel Mollema, Conyer Clayton, Megan Rose Franken, Greg Kampf, Sabina Lindgren, Jason Sherriff
Layout Poets – Ali Alikhani, Nathanael Larochette, Vanessa Rotondo, Conyer Clayton, Matthew Cowan, Daniel Mollema, Evan Runge, Callahan Connor
Created with generous support from the City of Ottawa
supported by 48 fans who also own “An Embarrassment of Riches”
We recently had a death of a well liked tenant in the rooming house that I run in Gastown, Vancouver. While waiting for the coroner to arrive, I played Woodfall for the police, who were in attendance and my other tenants. The officers inquired about the music, and we had a good conversation about the band Musk Ox, and where they were from, and where they could find their music, on Bandcamp. It was a beautiful choice of music for the send-off of an old friend. Brad Abar
supported by 43 fans who also own “An Embarrassment of Riches”
The songs are masterfully composed and flow together beautifully, and the orchestration is exactly how I want metal orchestration to sound: full, playable by a real orchestra, and just as important to the music as the vocals, drums, guitar, and bass are. tonycordeshimself
The Australian instrumental band juxtapose classical pianos and ambient swells with uncompromising, proggy post-metal. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 9, 2023