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Named after Siberia’s northernmost city, home of a famous heavy metal smelting complex, Norilsk is a doom-death band from Gatineau (Québec), Canada. After releasing an EP, Japetus, in July 2014, Norilsk now unveils their debut album - “The Idea of North” in a glorious digipack edition on Hypnotic Dirge Records.
“The Idea of North” is a doom-death album crafted for the winter season: it has slow and crushing riffs, death growls, and atmospheric arrangements. An evocation of an ominous presence over a vast wasteland, “The Idea of North” is a massive offering that triggers the imagination. Its music draws comparison with doom-death bands such as My Dying Bride, Morgion and Ablaze in Hatred, but it also has a few atmospheric sludge/post metal elements reminiscent of Isis and Morne.
Inspired by the multi-faceted Canadian experience of the North, and assembled into a cold yet dynamic sequence of eight individual songs, the album explores themes of darkness, isolation, identity, archaism and persistence—thus delivering a fresh perspective over the cliché Nordic imagery in metal in general.
“The Idea of North” was recorded at Studio En-Phase in Montreal by Jean-Philippe Latour (Paroxysm, Fuck the Facts, Talamyus), and mixed at Pebble Studios in Ottawa by Mike Bond (Dissentient, Endemise, Loviatar, Signs of Chaos), while the artwork was designed by professional artist Sam Ford, who also designed album artworks for Black Cobra, Witch Mountain and Monarch, among others.
Aside from the gorgeous two-panel cover and interior art pieces, the splendid digipak also contains all lyrics and translations (English and French), for worldwide fans of death-doom to enjoy the bitter taste of the Great White North.
The first 100 copies of the album sold comes with an 11cm x 7cm Norilsk sticker, and the first 40 copies of the album come with a full-color 43cm x 28cm Norilsk poster - a commissioned depiction of the doomed Franklin ship, which was lost at sea in 1845 searching for a Northwest passage to the pacific ocean and was finally discovered 169 years later in 2014 by a team of Canadian archaeologists.
lyrics
Abandonné dans l’abîme
Où s’est éteinte la lumière
Où se sont échoués les sons
Où on a crevé l’écho
Ici dans la neige, nul ne se souvient
Ici où personne, personne ne répond
Suspendu par un souffle
Invisible, le vide, autour
Mon coeur glacé à jamais
Bientôt déshumanisé
Grand corps mort gisant gelé
credits
from The Idea of North,
track released March 10, 2015
Nicolas Miquelon - Music and Lyrics
Nick Richer - Drums and Backing vocals
Hypnotic Dirge Records is an independent record label and webshop based in Esquimalt, Canada active since 2008. Our intention and raison d'être is to release quality expressive and eclectic art through aural manifestations.
An excellent and prolific one-man project from Baku, Azerbaijan! Post-Black Metal combined with shoegaze, a really beautiful and dreamy album. Hypnotic Dirge Records
supported by 225 fans who also own “The Idea of North”
What can you say more after reading the abhorrent bio of this album? This is the black vomit of Tchornobog: abyssal violation of senses and pineal gland and you are not the same person after encountering this multidimensional god. 𝙅𝙤𝙚 𝙎𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙡𝙡
36 choice cuts - one from each 2015 LP, plus music from new signings on the mighty and 25-years-strong Relapse label. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 4, 2015
