Norilsk - Antipole

Angry Metal Guy

By quirk of circumstance, Antipole is the third French-language album I’ve reviewed in a row. Norilsk break the trend in one way, however, as they are Quebecois, not French. Antipole is also not a debut (as my other 2025 subjects have been); far from it, Norilsk being a fairly established name in the Canadian death/doom sphere. With an approach that broadly leans towards the grit and grime of the two genres—rather than the grandiosity or beautification of either—but a tendency to flirt with post, they have garnered appreciation as solid riff-deliverers who can still keep things a little interesting. As its name might suggest, Antipole is a study of opposites, with the promo sheet highlighting the dualities Norilsk explore both conceptually and literally through the music’s evolutions. Such polarities are, in fact, key.

If not granted much attention, Antipole is serviceable doom-y death; deviations from the template rare enough to be forgettable. But it was when my listens moved from passive to active that problems began to emerge. Under a camouflage of unremarkability—a problem in itself—the true colors make themselves plain if you really look. Most melodies become frustrating in their wasted potential; most riffs lack presence; the overuse of essentially spoken-word delivery of the growled vocals gets ever more grating. But the greatest issue, encompassing all others, is that the compositions feel flimsy whereas they ought to feel hefty—instrumental and vocal elements not harnessed to their full potential, and highs dropped in without justifying set-up. Duality is one thing, but disjointedness is another, and it is the former that characterizes Antipole. But it is not a dynamic kind of disjointed—such as one might find in overambitious technical extreme metal—but quite the opposite: an apathetic lack of follow-through that’s insidiously vague, but ultimately brings the above problems into even sharper relief.

Antipole by Norilsk

Norlisk severely underuse key building blocks of both doom and death.¹ Rather than harnessing song lengths to execute builds and releases, to hint, deliver, and reprise refrains, they often repeat empty phrases (“Antipole,” “La chute du géant”), and simply switch into unearned flourishes (“Locus Sanctus,” “La fonte”), or discard a melody for stripped-back flatness (“Nunataks,” “Un chant pour les morts”). Instead of complimenting weighty riffs with soaring themes, or doubling down in grimy dissonance, (most) melodies are thin, barely develop, and carry about as much emotion as a bank statement. The emphasis on spoken word and approximately spoken or whispered delivery for harsh vocals gives much of the music a disinterested, placid effect, while the instances of more aggressive barking come across as put-on if not passable—though they are soon supplanted by the dominating whisper-growl anyway. Individual pieces—a groove here (“D’ombre et de glace (l’asphysxie)”), a riff there (“Nunataks”), the rare appearance of coherent thematic development in a beautiful solo (“La chute du géant”)—are good. But while shrouding the disconnection and the tameness at first blush, soon they make more evident how exasperatingly under-developed the whole is. These highlights themselves lose their sheen like gold dust in a pile of ash–not worth getting excited about, when you have to trawl through the rest to catch them. Let not the embed fool you: it’s possibly the best track.

Everything contained within Antipole is serviceable, but those stand-out elements prove that Norilsk are capable of much more than serviceable. Where they flirt with post (“Un chant pour les morts”) or a more energetic melodeath (“Locus Sanctus”) the music gains a hint of intrigue, but it loses it just as quickly because Norilsk don’t do anything with it, and settle back into comfortable, unremarkable death-doom. Some inconsistencies in the mix possibly contribute to the album’s problems. Harsh vocals sometimes fall back behind the guitars and percussion, meaning that when they would otherwise sound very good, with their resonant growls, they instead end up a little choked and feel non-committal. However, the spoken-word vocals usually appear right at the front of the mix, though they do not possess the requisite gravity for this prominence, and it makes them and the music accompanying them feel somehow flat. When the music is neither crushing enough to warrant a dense production—though at times it pretends to be—nor dynamic enough to justify a spacious one—though, again, attempts are made—the mix never feels just right; to my ears anyway. Perhaps Antipole has just driven me insane.

With apparent appreciation for Norilsk in the underground scene, and some stand-out moments—particularly on the front end—the true face of Antipole turned out to be an immense disappointment. There are approximately ten minutes of good death-doom hidden amidst the full 48, and whether or not this suffices to give Antipole your time is up to you. Maybe Norilsk have fallen from grace; maybe the fans were simply wrong all along.²

Rating: Disappointing
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Hypnotic Dirge
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: February 6th, 2025

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