From Bandcamp, “NORILSK is known for its unique take on winter doom, where cultures and nordicity provide a backdrop for addressing other deeper concepts such as loss, mental illness, or identity with the land. On its new album “Antipole,” the artist explores the concept of duality. The album flows between slow and faster songs, and highlights the contrasts in death and doom, with its beauty and tragedy, harshness and fragility, light and darkness, reality and fiction, and its gravity and ethereality.”

The album has seven songs, and the title track is first. It has a slow, steady, and somewhat cold riff that is augmented with thick bass notes. The vocals are guttural, but not very deep, and the song gives me a hopeless feeling. “D'ombre et de glace (l'asphyxie)” is shorter in length than the previous song, and the slow, grinding pace of Doom continues, although the vocals are a little more lively. “Locus Sanctus” hears the pacing slow again, and this time there are whispers and even some solemn melodies from lead guitars. The sound is energized from a strike of lightning half way through.

“Nunataks” moves forward with a faster pace, fueled by a powerful and stalwart riff that reminds me of the cold of the Nordic countries. The vocals come alive again, and sound like an angry giant who woke from a long nap and is now in search of food. “La chute du géant” is a near-11 minute opus, giving the band plenty of time to explore the concept of nothingness. There are some delicate moments of melody and guitar harmonies here tempered in with the cold winds of despair. “La fonte” is more even-keeled and steady, and the vocals are sung in their native tongue. They use melody at just the right time, to maximize its effects.

“Un chant pour les morts” closes the album, and it’s long, and dreary. The pace is slow, and the riff gets colder as it moves along. But there are also moment of levity, like the melodic interlude that pierces the mid-section and the subtle melodies that follow. Overall, I like the approach that the band took to expand upon traditional sounds of the genre. The moments of melody, for example, are places at just the right time, to lift up your spirit when it seems to be at its lowest point. But that hardened sense of Doom still heavily permeates the album.