Norilsk - Antipole

Norilsk is a doom metal band from Canada, who formed in 2012.  Their latest album, “Antipole,” is their fourth full-length album; they have also released two EPs.

 This album is apparently centered around the concept of duality and I can hear that in the music.  Although rooted in doom, with a hefty mix of death and post elements thrown in, the tempo varies from slow to fast paced.  The atmosphere is cold and rigid, not unlike a frozen wasteland.  However, there are a lot of melodies contained within that have a sense of warm familiarity to them.  

This is very much an embrace of that duality concept I spoke up earlier, with the swirling together of these light and dark elements. “Antipole,” is an unique album because of how well they bend the music to their subject matter.  

The album opens with the title track, a very bold statement and also a showing of confidence for their music.  It begins with the deep rumbling of bass, a truly sinister tone that also accompanies the guitar riffs later.  The lead guitar cuts through with a catchy melody that gripped me immediately.  At the 1:32 mark, sweltering riffs suffocate the air as the bass pops out from behind them.  For the first five minutes, the song is dismal dirge but around the 5:08 mark,  a spacious passage that has a mystic occult feel breaks up the song before it returns to the road of doom.

The album isn’t afraid to play around with clean tones, as evident on “Locus Sanctus.”  For the first minute, whispered cleans meld with the clean guitar as they build up to a growling and thick as hell riffs.    The band is pretty damn good at taking such passages and naturally flowing them out into a bigger moment—around the halfway mark, the song pulls back once again but builds upon itself with melodies that eventually grow fast paced passages that show off their death metal roots.  Despite the sudden surge of brutal movement, the song slides back into an infectious melodic tone. 

The centerpiece of the album has to be “La Chute du geant,” and it is placed perfectly into the track list.  Close to 11 minutes in length, the song encompasses everything the album is and fully represents the band’s sound in 2025.  The first three and a half minutes finds the band exploring more and more their use of stripped down instrumentation.    The song retains this dour sense of exploration even when it gets heavy—this is a very subtle track that will take several listens to reveal itself.  

The final song, “Un chant pour les morts,” begins with gentle but mysterious atmospheric tones, like a cold day that still has a lot of sunshine.  This is one of the slowest songs on the album and I think it's one of the best because it embraces what doom metal is all about. The final half is a little brighter it seems, like the fog clearing up on a stormy morning. 

Norilsk’s “Antipole,” is an interesting doom metal album that captures the moody nature of the genre while viewing it through a variety of different colors and shades. I feel like the band is really on the edge of something truly special, once they get a full grasp of their vision.  Recommended listening for sure and definitely has me impatiently waiting for the next album. 

Rating: Great