Published: September 30, 2016

Norilsk is the northernmost city in Siberia. It is, in fact, the northernmost city of more than a hundred thousand citizens in the world.

Norilsk is a place bound by permafrost with a history that begins with a prison colony. So, The Idea Of North seems apropos of what is alive here battered by the ice and snow. Solitude and long nights. The place where thoughts sour and turn toward the end. Everything on the album is low. Eight...

Published: September 27, 2016

To all things, there is a season. As the sweltering oppression of summer gives way to the Pumpkin-Spiced fuckery of autumn, Canadians know that little time remains before their existence is plunged into near perpetual darkness and genital-damaging cold. While the yearly ritual of unpacking the winter clothes while gripped with crippling existential dread is certainly tiresome, at least this year the fine fellows who compr...

Published: July 15, 2015

The thing about Sludge, Doom and even Grunge, is that because the general pitch of the music is so deep and the tempo so slow, it can sometimes be hard to find the rhythm of the songs. Not only that, but the vocalists often struggle to settle on a style that matches the music. The benefit of one man running the show, as is the case with NORILSK, is that Nicolas Miquelon can establish his own creative vision and pursue it without having to...

Published: July 8, 2015

Basically, if you have this album in your hands, you don't really need Norilsk's EP "Japetus", unless you are eager to hear the brilliant Voivod cover the band performed on that EP. The remaining couple of (original) tracks off "Japetus" are presented also on this debut full-length in their entirety and in the exact same version as they had appeared before.

That leaves us with six entirely new tracks (and a couple of excellent older...

Published: July 2, 2015

It’s summer, I know, but it’s time to bundle up real good, because we’re about to go on a rather frigid and icy trek into the long night. Fair warning: with each breath you take, your lungs will scream in freezing agony. Listen the howling of the wind, feel as it burns your face. The blinding orange sky is all around us as push ourselves forward in the numbing intensity of the northern Canada landscape.

This is the imagery that ...

Published: May 16, 2015

The demo 'Japetus' by Canada's Norilsk left me wanting to hear more. Now 'The Idea Of North' has been released, I can wholeheartedly tell it was worth the wait. The music this duo delivers, is hardly comparable to any other doom band. Basically this can be described as death/doom mixed with some sludge and a bit of post metal. Add the vocals in the French language and you have a pretty good picture of Norilsk. By the way, the lyr...

Published: May 16, 2015

Less than a year after the release of their debut EP, Japetus, Norilsk signed with Hypnotic Dirge and already delivered their first full-length album. Two of the three EP tracks were kept for this debut album, together with 7 new titles, so The Idea of North offers us 9 tracks in its 55 minutes of playing time, 9 tracks mixing slow, tormenting Doom rhythms almost touching Funeral Doom territories with some more energetic '90's type Doom De...

Published: April 30, 2015

Hailing from Quebec, this duo take their name from Siberia’s most desolate, northernmost city, and of course it’s home to a ….metal foundry. And while you’d expect doom considering the moniker and label, this isn’t the huge, lumbering, funeral doom, Evoken/Ahab sort of crawl the name and label imbue, as it’s much more varied.

These guys have more in common with blackened, sludge or stoner doom and more grooving death do...

Published: April 29, 2015

While there’s something to be said about a good riff, a good riff by itself with no follow through is something of a wasted opportunity. That’s what The Idea of North is. Solid riffs, good drumming, heavy vocals, just played for eternity. They’re the sonic equivalent of that attractive person who catches your eye, but open further inspection you realize they’re not all there.

This Quebecois death/doom duo’s debut lacks the...

Published: April 12, 2015

With their debut album ‘The Idea Of North’ Norilsk have thrown something of a curveball into the arena of death / doom metal, as while it’s certainly an accurate description of their music this is an album that’s quite unlike any other death / doom album I’ve heard up to now. What Norilsk do well here is take the genre to the more extreme end of the spectrum, coming at you with crushing heaviness and an atmosphere of st...

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 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 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...

Published: February 24, 2015

From the province of Quebec comes Norilsk with their second release, an album called The Idea of North. It takes almost an hour to journey through the album, but it does not feel as such. Time moves differently in the North that Norilsk speak about, a North that is full of freezing, heaving oceans, endless abysses, “fratricidal war”, and many horrors.

Blending traditional doom in the vein of the classics from Black Sabb...