Published: March 31, 2015

Taking their name from a remote Siberian city, home to a renowned heavy metal smelting complex, Canada's Norilsk have a name to live up to and with their latest offering, 'The Idea Of North', they offer up a chilling slice of doom that does the job with gusto. 

Things get off to an ominous start with 'Japetus', a crunching riff interlaced with a piercing melodic line and vocals that reach a depth and grimness I've rarely heard. It's all...

Published: March 28, 2015

“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 artwork alone captivates and sends me off to different worlds, while the nine tracks paint brutal themes of...

Published: March 25, 2015

Norilsk offer up an album of death/doom/metal that combines the cold and morose with the upbeat and melodic. The music creates an expansive and foreboding landscape that is broken up intermittently by atmospheric guitar lines that build tension and trudging rhythms that propel some fairly infectious doom riffs (often overlaid with tremolo picking). Morne and Paradise Lost influences are apparent. Being from Quebec, the band uses Fre...

Published: March 25, 2015

Published: March 19, 2015

Published: March 17, 2015

Hailing from Canada, the doomsters Norilsk have just released the debut album “The Idea Of North” via Hypnotic Dirge Records. Promoted as a doom band, the record’s initial moments show a sludge side due to the guitars’ fat distortion that slowly opens the hostilities. Soon, the presented guitar riffs express a good variety and, without wishing to go on a constant labeling, we can even find some stoner metal influences.

Doom me...

Published: March 13, 2015

You are trudging through the cold snow, blinding light beating onto your brow from the white crystalline expanse stretching out around you forever. There are small icicles hanging from your clothes. Every breath taken brings the agony of a cold so strong, so omnipresent, that it shreds your lungs. You sigh, a small cloud forming from your exhalation, and continue to walk. Whenever you take a step, you hear the muffled crunch of sn...

Published: March 12, 2015

One label with a real knack for finding top shelf doom and black metal is that of Hypnotic Dirge. Introduced to them last year with the excellent Epitimia, looking through their catalog has brought some intriguing finds. So when any new release is announced, it gets some attention. This time, the band in question is that of Canadian doomsters Norilsk, for whom The Idea of North is their first full length album.

The most interesting aspe...

Published: March 12, 2015

Mit ihrem Debüt "The Idea Of North" präsentieren uns die kanadischen NORILSK ein düsteres Werk, das ganz im Zeichen des Death Doom steht. Dabei agiert die Band weitestgehend solide, auch wenn kein Song wirklich heraussticht oder besondere Akzente setzen kann. Ganz nach dem Motto "solide Hausmannskost" bekommt der geneigte Hörer zwar alles geboten, was er erwartet, aber eben auch nicht mehr. Hier mal eine Nuance MY DYING BRIDE, dort eine ...

Published: March 10, 2015

Most of the time when we get things from the Quebec region of Canada it is the areas own authentic take on black metal. This time however it’s doom and its death all in one slab. The band have even gone to partly distance themselves from their own environment by naming themselves after Siberia’s Northernmost city. One has to wonder if home is not quite cold enough for them and if they pop out through Quebec’s snow blizzards i...

Published: March 8, 2015

Well, there's a thing. I had some engaging contact with Norilsk last year when reviewing the very promising 'Japetus' EP, which was recorded simultaneously with this debut full-length, and self-released in advance as both 'taster' and 'first chapter'. Now, 'The Idea Of North' has finally surfaced as a label release through Hypnotic Dirge Records, in the form of a quality and beautifully-illustrated digipack...and, browsing through the i...