"Shoegazer" is a term I've been hearing a lot lately that seems to plague a genre of metal that is far more deserving of a better adjective. I don't know who deemed this term noteworthy, but it is extremely annoying. It implies that while listening to music of the heavy, epic persuasion that you stand in an emotional stillness staring toward the ground below while giving no eye contact or physical props to the band that's rocking your face off.

On this reissued 2006 release, YEAR OF NO LIGHT give us a mix of brutal heaviness and doomy riffage with painfully screamed vocals and ambient keyboards to boot. Grant it there won't be circle pits at their shows, but the ten tracks on "Nord" really deliver enough brutality to make you move a bit so that you're not gazing at you shoes. Arising from Bordeaux, France, this five piece would be better described as "art metal". NEUROSIS and ISIS come to mind while listening to this. I believe "atmospheric pummeling" or "epic despair" would better describe this band.

YEAR OF NO LIGHT present "Nord" as their most recent soundtrack to this dark and mysterious world. 10 tracks of heavy, ambient dirge metal that command your attention riff to riff and track to track. It seems difficult for some bands of this genre to maintain this sound consistently throughout an entire lp, but YONL definitely harness and ride out with power, intensity and consistency.

- Dr. Sinister

OFFICIAL SITE: http://yearofnolight.free.fr

MP3 SOUND SCRAP: Traversèe

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