March 29, 2015 / 0 comments

Norilsk – The Idea Of North

“At its core this is a Doom/Death Metal album with elaborate expansions.  Slow, cruising tempos and classic riffs meets often applied sludgy/post musical arrangements that are put together in these colossal sounding tunes without sounding overblown.”

BAND: Norilsk
ALBUM: The Idea Of North
GENRE: Death/Doom/Sludge Metal
LABEL: Hypnotic Dirge Records
RUNNING TIME: 55.07
COUNTRY: Canada
YEAR: 2015
LINK: Norilsk

“The Idea Of North”. Such an eclipsing title ought to command epic music and in this case it does! Canadian duo Norilsk are one of plenty healthy and upcoming formations out of Quebec, creating sordid musical landscapes that manifest towering grooves, epic melodies and desolate, sludgy passages in the space between.

The Idea Of North
The Idea Of North

The artwork alone captivates and sends me off to different worlds, while the nine tracks paint brutal themes of an archaic Earth standing at death´s door. At its core this is a Doom/Death Metal album with elaborate expansions. Slow, cruising tempos and classic riffs meets often applied sludgy/post musical arrangements that are put together in these colossal sounding tunes without sounding overblown.

The moods are diverse. “Japetus” has nicely balanced concrete riffs with catchy lead guitar work, on the edge of sounding like a Death´n´Roll wildchild, while the title track brings on full-scale Metal epicness, slow and uptempo. Then you have these bleak wastelands like “La Grande Noirceur” and “Nature Morte” breaking up the powerful sounds adding to the diversity of the album. Grounded but flexible. Vocal patterns are also a highlight, beastly growls counter atmospheric singing, kinda touching upon Epic Doom Metal tones ala Candlemass, although the singing is being used a bit more sparingly.

Norilsk
Norilsk

Norilsk have done a more than adequate job for a debut album, managing to keep things pretty diverse and interesting veering between the classic Doom/Death Metal and the more repugnant sound assets of Sludge Metal while flirting with some lengthy Post Metal ideas. A band to watch out for, definitely. 8/10

TRACKLIST:

1. Japetus
2. Planéte Heurt
3. Throa
4. La Liberté Aux Ailes Brisées
5. Nature Morte
6. Potsdam Glo
7. La Grande Noirceur
8. The Idea Of North
9. Coeur De Loup

About the author

extrememetalvoyager

Name´s Fróði Tórálvsson Stenberg, extreme metal voyager. Based in Tórshavn, The Faroe Islands, metal has always played a huge part of my life. It´s been an integral part of me and has teached quite a few valuable lessons about life and reality. I´ve celebrated this style of music for over twenty years now, I really appreciate its intensity, extremity and sometimes underlying irony, it takes me out of my comfort zone. My interest increases each year instead of slowly growing apart. During hardships, I´ve always turned to metal music, listening, detecting an empowering resonance that has given me relief, especially the more extreme forms. Extreme Metal music was basically nonexistent on The Faroe Islands in the nineties. You had the classics of course, your Maiden, Priest, Kiss, Metallica, Motley Crue etc. Later on, extreme metal albums were imported for a short time before the internet platforms gave me access on a more frequent basis and a whole new world opened in front of me. I´m constantly looking out for new bands, searching back and forward, left and right. An obsessive record collector. I´ve done hundreds and hundreds of reviews, interviews, articles at sites like Urkraft and The Metal Observer since 2002. The opportunity of joining a metal community has exposed me to a lot of metal music… A LOT! Good, bad and just plain weird, the sub genres are plentiful. It´s been an interesting ride. Having this outlet, I´ve considered myself as an ambassador for Faroese Metal through my position as a writer at the aforementioned websites, promoting them whenever there´s been releases. This page is intended to be tied with my future blog, which is being designed at the moment. I feel that I´ve started Extreme Metal Voyager for the right reasons. It´s all about the music, first and foremost, like a digital tape trading “underground enviroment”. There´ll be a staggering amount of link posting of old favorites, new discoveries, left-field guilty pleasures and so on. I´ll post my personal recommendations, review albums, do some interviews and hopefully write some interesting articles about all things Metal. I´ll try to keep the content varied and interesting. Everything kept with a healthy sense of sarcasm, irony, enthusiasm and loathing. I do not apologize for the amateur level, I call the shots here.

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