Nortt
Galgenfrist
9.5
Nortt does it again. Some bands relish in their reliability. They establish the atmosphere early on and soldier forward with all creative notes in tow, slightly improving with each release, yet holding off complete satisfaction in due respect to the cold dense atmosphere conveyed. It's as if they are holding in some wanton burst of satisfaction for the sake of pure masichism. It seems as if Nortt can't get enough of whatever dark place its music is coming from and I'm happy to oblige. Galgenfrist is a fitting predecessor to the C-L-A-S-S-I-C Ligfaerd full length from 2006.
Not unlike the new Xasthur, nothing much has changed in Nortt country. The drums still sound like they're coming from a dungeon (at about 10 BPM mind you). The keys are droning and dissonant. The vocals are grim, not that you hear that much of them. The guitars maintain a feel of a slowed down Burzum combined with the drone of Earth. Combine that with heavy amounts of reverb and you get much of what Nortt does/is.
Unlike other "avant" black metal brethren who have changed their sound even the slightest, I'm glad Nortt's sound is tried, true, and unrelenting. If the music were to pick up tempo, it would lose what makes it so unwelcoming. If it descended into pure apocalyptic, speaker-destroying noise, it would be a case of "I like the older stuff better, but this is okay".
It's ice cold droning black doom and it's absolutely chilling. "Af Dode" and "Over Mit Lag" are songs of complete desolation. Makes me want to run around in the woods at night and whisper incantations to the ancient trees.....bleeeeeagh. I can't say anything else about Galgenfrist other than that this is simply Nortt flexing its muscle, yet again, and proving why it rules whatever dark past it crawled out of.
If you like Burzum, doom, noise, drone, avantgarde music, anything ever released on Cold Meat Industries, or anything that could more or less be lumped into "post-metal"; then there is no reason in this world or the next that you shouldn't have Nortt's entire catalog in your possession. Galgenfrist isn't a half bad place to start. I am enthralled.
