Published: December 19, 2017

NCS published the interview with Norilsk’s main man Nicolas Miquelon about two years ago, when the duo (its second half being Nick Richer, drums, backing vocals) appeared with the first full-length The Idea Of North.

This band is located in Québec but was named after a Russian city placed in Northern Siberia and known for its heavy industry and hostile environment. Such a name suits the band well, for they tend toward heavy distorted and frosty death-doom metal.

Nicolas Miquelon and Nick Richer returned in November 2017 with a new album, Le Passage Des Glaciers, and this material is the best illustration of a slow, horrible death somewhere on desolated cold plains (as you can see on the artwork).

Norilsk have created a complex piece of art; they paid a lot of attention to details; and thus even minor components like the bleak interlude “Ellesmere” or “Midnight Sun” really count, as they enrich the dark palette of this work. The songs keep a similar atmosphere to The Idea of North, but with more complex, better-produced, and more melodic moments. The band took time for these arrangements, and the gents were more focused on compositions that have lifted Norilsk to a higher level.

Each song leads the listener through different stages of metaphorical death, and I wonder if rebirth waits in the end. Dynamic and heavy, “Ghosts Of Loss” brings cold and biting Siberian frost on the edges of sharp distorted guitars parts. “L’Erosion” has picturesque melodic sections which well-describel the vast realms of white dead fields.

If you search for something more extreme, then check out “La Voie Des Morts”, as this mournful and menacing track partly connects with the black metal scene; the harsh vocals also remind us of blizzards and ravenous cold winds (Nicolas relies on layers of thin guitar sound, a bit of reverb on his guitar and shrieking vocals). And I would pick “Namolennye” as a central composition of Le Passage Des Glaciers, conveying the best of Norilsk’s authentic spirit.

And by the way, Nicolas still writes his lyrics in French, a much appreciated feature.