Norse
Pest

Funny thing this Australian band, calling themselves Norse, do they have ties to the neighbours in the west? I don’t know that but I do know that they have to albums to show for their accomplishments, this is an EP that will be released only digitally from the band’s bandcamp site. Can that be something? or is it a pest of an album? It sure looks to be thematically derived from the black plague if one use the cover art as any guidance. I have no idea if that is a lyrical theme of this album, if it deals with the bacterium Yersinia pestis that is said to be the cause of that massive pandemic and several pandemics following that one. Even todays thousands of people fall ill due to that same bacteria, nasty thing it is as well with a very high mortality rate if untreated. The press info speaks of originality and people’s lack of that same thing or something like it. I like to think that it is a story of the black plague and that medieval times when people died in droves.

It sounds the part, you can almost sense the muddy roads in the villages, people moaning, screaming, others scared to contract the plague, bodies loaded on wagons stapled upon one another. Some kids crying because of their parents dying, the senselessness of it all and the inevitable smell of dead bodies, pyres of dead bodies. The mass graves, everything is here, just look at the cover and you know what you will get. It has just the right production for a thematic like it, the songs are also varied in many regards and these guys actually pulls off a neat trick. They manage to take a cheap technical black/death metal production and make it into something that isn’t sickening, that doesn’t make you grow buboes and die horribly, you just watch in your mind how the black metal bands die one after another in that plague and you never have to hear any of them again. Wishful thinking perhaps.

But it is very good, 27 minutes of enjoyable misery which is just what you need when feeling a bit down. I am impressed by how they manage to make something that is inherently horrible to become something good. The atmospheres and the ideas are very good, the problem is that the songs aren’t as good as the atmosphere and the mood. I think the opening song is very solid, all songs are good but not strong enough to really convince me. Then again, I am probably not the targeted audience. If I was they would not reach too many.

So, I think that we can conclude that if you like a cleverer version of the cheaply produced black metal bands out there, then I think you will find this album quite great. And even if black metal isn’t your forte, I think it could be worth taking a look at this one.

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