Norse – All Is Mist and Fog (2013)

What happens when a release arrives a couple of years late to the party? It just sounds very dated and weak in comparison to others. This is the main problem that we have with Norse and their sophomore release “All is Mist and Fog”. With a tight Blackened Death Metal sound from several years back and a very weak production, this release would have been greatly benefitted from a remastering or something.

Moving on full steam ahead with the pummeling “Neglect”, the band has a dated sound that while powerful is not quite what most releases these days have. The drumming is quite intense, but it sounds, to be honest, like total shit. It might have been the promo or they tried to give it a weird effect, but it sounds like it was recorded inside a toilet and some muffling effect was added. We don’t like to be this harsh on releases, but when everything else sounds quite ok, we wonder how this could have happened.

Aside from the weak drumming, the band’s intensity is quite excellent and their dated Blackened Death Metal sound is quite passable for nostalgic fans of the genre. There are also some tracks like “Towards the Shining Sky” that have very intricate tempo changes that we quite enjoyed. By the time we arrive at “Plaguewhore”, the band’s sound gets a bit repetitive and the weak vocals start to get on your nerves. The riffing is also quite linear, and while having a ton of cool tempo changes, the songs all start to sound the same.

Closing with tracks like “Concrete Waters”, one starts to wonder where the creativity went with such a repetitive and aimless track. Same can be said for “Gravel” a song that has ok moments but it suddenly just gets very odd and undirected. In general, we have to say that while Norse’s sound is a bit dated, there is still a market for it. The thing we can’t forgive is the shit sound of the drums, in this day and age when you can records good shit on an iPad, bad production values are just inexcusable.

Release: April, 2013

Genre: Blackened Death Metal

Country: Australia