TURBONEGRO
Retox
(Cooking Vinyl)

ENGINEER
The Dregs
(Black Market Activities)

MARBLE SHEEP
Message From Oarfish
(Funfunvierzig)

OROKU
Living Through The End Time...
(Inimical)

LIGHT PUPIL DILATE
Snake Wine
(Lifeforce)

TOMBS
S/T 

(Black Box/Level Plane)

LIETTERSCHPICH
I Cum Blood in the Think Tank

(Heart & Crossbone)

MORE REVIEWS

Oh, la la! What else can I say that would encapsulate how I feel about Nord? It’s tres fantastique! Oui, monsieur. As part of a handful of releases from French art metal bands that the always surprising Crucial Blast label is releasing Stateside, Nord elevates the game to its fourth potency. Offering a giant sound that nicely mixes the layered and introspective sound of bands like Isis and Cult of Luna, with the skull bashing, ass stomping mystique and troubled mechanics of Godflesh and Neurosis; Year of No Light ingeniously works both extremes into a functional and dynamic sound that’s at times gorgeous and atmospheric (like the hopeful build up of “Selenite”) and at others devastating and blunt (like the destructive stomping giant metal of “L’ Angoisse du Veilleur de Nuit d’ Autoroute Les Soirs D’Alarme a Accident”).  And yet, at others is so expert that it marries both, the ugly vocal harshness of a black metal beginner with the expert guitar weaving of a post-rocker (“Traversee”).

Still, by far the most outstanding quality of Year of No Light is their ability to make direct music. Sure, that hardly makes sense considering that they cross metal, hardcore, shoegaze and post rock; these last two are especially elusive of immediacy. But Nord is full of beauty; the most atmospherics passages not only possess simplicity but are immediately affecting. “Somnambule” and “Prosodia” are two interlocked instrumentals that are particularly effective while being non-metal and splitting the record in two. The absence of guitars is not only welcomed, but builds up anticipation before Year of No Light bring back the heaviness with “Par Economie Pendant la Crise con Eteint la Lumiere au Bout du Tunnel”. After which, the only thing we can ask for is easier and shorter song titles.

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