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 Sabbath, Pentagram, and the like, with funeral doom and even doses of death and black metal, Norilsk have a sound that is rather singular. There are sections of songs that remind me a bit of other bands, but their mixing of influences change the songs so immensely it is hard to pinpoint one way to describe them.

The album, as a whole, is a slow moving glacier, much like the Japetus EP that came before it, but it is much thicker, longer, and brutally unforgiving, not stopping its steady march from the Northern mountains to the Northern ocean, where it will continue as icebergs destined to down ships. It’s a ride that you can’t just hop onto and off of when you are ready. This is an album full of nuance and attention to detail, and should be played as such, preferably with headphones. Throw in a doomed cover of a Belgian pop song, and you’ve got yourself a damn near perfect listen. Beyond recommended, I will probably go through two copies of this album this year alone.