Track By Tracks: NORILSK - Weepers Of The Land (2018)

1. No Sacred Ground:

The first song is a homage to doom metal and the underground scene. This epic 8-minutes song offers semi-galloping grooves, tasty guitar hooks, and a long, crushing slow section. Our good friend Damian Smith from Altars of Grief is the guest vocalist in the middle part, which we think enhances it and captures the spirit of the song.

2. The Way:

We were approached to participate in a special tribute album to the cinema. The project never saw the light of day, but we chose to go ahead with our song nonetheless. The Way could be described as the dark path to occultism, which transforms you and from which you never return. It was inspired by occult movies, more precisely Secrets of Chinatown: the Black Robe, one of the earliest movies in the genre in Canada (1935). Mysteries, murders, hoods, and candles: the perfect backdrop for slowly tortured riffs.

3. Toute la noirceur du monde:

This song looks at the more traditional side of doom metal. It was one of the last songs composed in 2017, prior to entering the studio for recording two albums(!), and we didn't have lyrics for it. Our friend Ben Forte (North East Bistro, TGRE, ex-Fallstaf) is a great lyricist, and he had a text that fit perfectly, about all the darkness that people create. Add a few bells, an epic heavy metal solo (from guest guitarist Mort Marion), and you have the perfect combination.

4. Tomber 7 fois:

We recorded this one in 2016, for a metal tribute album to Mylène Farmer, which was released exclusively in Russia. We always liked the Sabbath groove on this song, and despite giving it our own texture, we didn't change much to the song nor its original speed. Because the release was somewhat limited, we thought it would be interesting to have it completely re-mixed and to add it as a bonus track to Weepers of the Land.

5. Weepers of the Land:

The title track has a personality of its own while capturing what Norilsk has been developing so far. Flirting with funeral doom, it builds very slowly throughout its 10-minutes length, over a canvas written on an 8-string bass guitar, with constant guitar harmonies and steady drum patterns. We wrote the lyrics to this song with our friend Joshua Cayer (Longhouse), and the concept is about what stays behind after someone vanishes. There is a lot of symbolic meaning in this song, and we worked with director Erik Labossiere (Wikked Twist Films) to turn the music video into something of a short movie: https://youtu.be/ZliIb1IKHUs.