Words and Photos by Jose Serrato
Dallas based artist, Novulent, is a 20 year old that is doing big things in the music scene. His 2023 release, “Scars,” has over 115 million plays on Spotify, has been used in over 264k Tik Tok videos and streams 2.3 million times per week. Numbers like these will grab the attention from many in the music business. This past Friday, Novulent released his new 3 song E.P. on Capitol Records that he followed with a sell out show the next night at the newly opened TX Tea Room in Deep Ellum. “BEFORE EVOLUTION” is a mixture of hard rock, emo and shoegaze sounds that can have a resemblance to bands like the deftones.
TX Tea Room is a new bar/club that opened up on Main St in Deep Ellum late in 2024. A shotgun type space with the bar up front and a stage in the back corner. With doors due to open at 7pm Saturday night, a line was forming outside the door on this cold night. A line that quickly grew longer as it came close to doors opening. The mostly young crowd quickly made their way to the front of the stage. I say mostly young from all the X’s I saw on their hands indicating under age.
Screams started to roar as the lights cut out and Novulent took the stage at about 9pm. An hour long set that had the crowd singing along the entire time. Not something I’ve experience many times when it comes to new artists on the come up. Leads me to think that Novulent fans are more than just fans. A big smile covered his face as he looked over the crowd singing his words back to him.
Novulent has a familiar yet unique sound to him. His music grabs your attention as you try to place the sound, but then start listening to his touch that makes it his own. His high energy live show intensifies the shoegaze element in the music. Did I mention the girl that climbed up onto the ceiling rafters next to the stage? Yeah, it was that type of energy in the room.
Being this young and having the success he has currently, I’ll be keeping an ear out on what Novulent does next. Such high potential to do amazing things in this crazy music business. Give him a listen and make sure to check out a show whenever he’s in town. The crowds will only be growing as his music spreads further out.