Published: April 24, 2019 

Norilsk is a Canadian doom/death/post-metal band formed in 2012 and named after the city of Norilsk located in Siberia and known as the world’s northernmost city. A region that’s covered in snow and darkness for most of the year. “Weepers Of The Land” is Norilsk’s third album, released through Canadian record label Hypnotic Dirge Records who, in the past, also worked with our fellow Belgian doomers called Marche Funèbre. “Weepers Of The Land” functions as a conceptual sequel to their 2017 outing “Le Passage Des Glaciers” with this mini-album’s material written and recorded around the same time period as its predecessor. Big thanks to Asher Media Relations for sending us this sweet stuff.

The album begins with “No Sacred Ground,” a doom metal tune that starts up surprisingly fast paced (for this subgenre’s standards, that is) and with raw black metal vocals but after the 3-minute mark the song slows down to a typically doom metal rhythm and vocalist Nicolas going for the usual howls and growls with an occasional blackened shriek. An effective double-edged opener. Then comes “The Way,” in which the band goes for a truly dark and threatening tune that at times reminded me of Swallow The Sun, too bad the multiple monologue samples spoil the experience a bit. The third track on the album is one in French “Toute La Noirceur Du Monde,” (“All The Darkness Of The World”). It’s the album’s highlight song, not only thanks to the roaring bass lines and soaring guitar work but also because the song is entirely in French. And believe it or not, but the language of love works amazingly well with the growls, shrieks and overall dark atmosphere of this song. In fact, I would prefer Norilsk to just write all their songs in French, it’s super-effective!

And finally there’s the title track of “Weepers Of The Land,” a 10-minute tune that starts off with a gentle but slightly threatening bass that eventually transitions into slow doom and psychedelic melodies and chants. A nice song to relax to, but not really the band’s best effort. And if you get your hands on the physical CD version of this album, then you get a bonus track, a cover of the song “Tomber 7 Fois” by French pop rocker Mylène Farmer. Originally a slow and quite joyful song, but with Norilsk’s dreary style this tune gets a whole lot menacing.

If doom metal is your thing then Norilsk is a band certainly worth a try, they put forward competent and atmospheric tunes that feel like they’ve come straight from the illustrious city Norilsk is named after. So go and seek out the coldest and darkest room in your home and enjoy this short but sweet album. To “warm you up,” here’s the music video for the “Weepers Of The Land” title track.