Published: December 4, 2018

NORILSK is a Blackened Doom Metal band from Canada. This year, they released their third full-length, “Weepers of the Land,” a five-track album that is more Doom Metal and Post-Metal than actual Black Metal. The overall tone of this album is chill. I can’t say much about the instrumental parts of the music, as they aren’t very original or memorable, but the relaxed and laid-back feeling they give off is effective. However calm the music is, there are thousands of other bands like this. I could go listen to any other modern Doom Metal act and get the same product slowly trickling from my speakers at molasses pace.

Here’s the gist of this album: it’s modern Doom Metal by the books. There are no hooks and nothing to catch your attention. It’s nice to have on in the background, and that’s about it. This is the whole album until the last track, “Weepers of the Land.” This is by far the best track on here, being 10 minutes of some of the most relaxing Doom Metal I’ve ever listened to. As a stressed-out college student, this song was nice to hear. It has a nice flow that builds up gradually over time. The best part is the vocal harmonization throughout the song because they give the song more depth and meaning.

This album has its ups and downs, but the lowest it gets is track four. It’s a cover of “Tomber 7 fois” by Mylène Farmer, a Canadian singer-songwriter. It’s always interesting to see a metal band cover a pop song, but this cover is not good. It’s strangely upbeat, and it does not fit the tone of the album or the band’s sound as a whole. I could have definitely done without this five-minute ear sore. Other than track four, like I said, everything is pretty average. Overall, the album isn’t terrible, but it’s definitely not original or memorable, save the last track.