Norilsk

Named after Siberia’s northernmost city, home of a famous heavy metal smelting complex, Norilsk is a doom-death band from Gatineau/Ottawa, Canada. Characterized by slow and crushing riffs, death growls, icy melodies and atmospheric arrangements, its music draws inspiration from the 1990's doom-death scene, while incorporating a heavy dose of eclectic and contemporary influences.

Norilsk consists of Nic Miquelon, Nick Richer, Tom Hansen and Matt MacIvor. Since its beginnings, it shared the stage with a number of bands, including Yob, High on Fire, Monolord, Weedeater, Tombs, Uada, Grim Reaper, Algoma, Altars of Grief, Nachtterror, Longhouse, Tunguska Mammoth, and much more.

After self-releasing an introductory EP, Japetus, in 2014, the band released its first full length album The Idea of North in 2015 on Hypnotic Dirge Records (CD)
and Dwyer Records (cassette). The album received a lot of attention from around the world, especially from the sludge and doom-death community, leading
Norilsk to release it on vinyl the following year on War on Music Records and Sunmask Records. In the Fall of 2016, the band toured over 8,000 km across
Canada in support of The Idea of North, and played festivals such as Black Mourning Light Festival (Edmonton) and Earslaughter Festival (Montréal). In this
period, it also took part in several compilations and recorded a song for a metal tribute album to Mylène Farmer, on GS Productions.

In 2017, Norilsk presented a new full length album, Le passage des glaciers, again via Hypnotic Dirge Records. Consistently turned towards the horizon, this opus expanded considerably the Norilsk sound and themes, carrying the party a few miles further into the distance. One year later, in October of 2018, the band released a brand new
offering; a signal that autumn has once again been tuned down to doom and the bitter cold. Weepers of the Land was a companion mini-album to the previous
year's full length Le passage des glaciers, presenting a more abrasive and visceral Norilsk weaving stories of heritage and loss through dynamic and atmospheric blackened death-doom metal.

The 2022 Beyond the Mountains EP can be seen as a bridge between distinct chapters in the history of the band. With the addition of live guitarists Tom Hansen
and Matt MacIvor to the permanent fold, the EP serves as a teaser while the band is working on a new full length.