Norke "Era"

An album i've been diving into a lot lately is this debut from the very unknown Norke, the info of this project is so little that the only things i know about it, is that it comes from Canada, that's pretty much it. Besides, this album is self released in CD-R and limited to 100 copies, where can you get it? Have no idea..

In general Norke's "Era" brings us some really deep depressive atmosphere, the album kicks in with "Nihil" an industrial sound intro topped with some random black riffs, after that, the first real track, "La Belle Morte", starts with some classic acoustic notes before swallowing us in into that black hole of depression. You won't find any sort of worship to the unholy goat here, instead you will get some depressive, almost in a romantic way, black metal. I mean depressive but not the kind of wrist-slashing depressive... i mean depressive as in something cold, dramatic, dead. One of the interesting aspect on this album is that we have, a handful of tracks, simply called "I", "II", "III", "IV", "V", that seem to work almost like a play, divided in acts. The purpose of these 5 tracks is for them to be played connected to each one of them, with no interruption. Because they work as a whole. That's the perception i get, as my attention is caught on every single detail by Norke's music. The end is announced by the track "Epitaph" and closed with "Somnis". Now, this last track is the loose end on this album... it doesn't have nothing to do with the rest of the previous tracks, just when we thought we've witnessed the funeral of "Era", "Somnis" comes along exhaling life and light. Maybe it's setting the tone for the next chapter, a new era... i really don't know what the artist thought by ending the album this way. Better listen for yourself and take your own conclusions. In overhaul, "Era" is a pretty solid release with great sound production, that got me hooked up to it in these past weeks.

listen | radiant depression