Year Of No Light "Nord" (Crucial Blast)
By Lucas Salg
Monday. Jun 11, 11:20 AM
Art-doom with a better grasp on melody and song structure than most.

If there’s a subgenre of metal that definitely doesn’t need any more bodies piling up on the ol’ bandwagon, it’s the slow, hypnotic, sludgy brand of art-doom pioneered by Neurosis, popularized by Isis, and plagiarized by seemingly every young band under the sun. Most bands looking to pilfer this style pick up all the bad habits: the endless repetition, the patience-testing song lengths, and the menacing “atmosphere” that all too often masks, poorly, a lack of real songwriting chops. I could kinda go the rest of my life and never pick up another record in this vein.

But France’s Year Of No Light are definitely not just another NeurIsis knockoff, and their melodic, moody, creative debut is engaging enough to put them in the upper echelons of the genre. A number of reviews have compared them to The Cure, and sure enough, in its lighter moments, Nord does strongly suggest a hardcore Disintegration with its liberal use of swelling keyboards and celestial melody. The band have a better grasp on melody and song structure than virtually any of its contemporaries, and a welcome propensity to indulge more in its softer side than its brutal side. The absolute highlight comes at the tail end of the nine-minute “Somnambule,” when the rhythm section sinks into an epic Kevin Shields-style sea of sound that stretches on for four beautiful minutes. Pelican would shit themselves trying to write a song this good, and hey, I like Pelican. It is these moments that make Nord a welcome reprieve from other, lesser albums of this ilk.

Unfortunately, Year Of No Light are so on for the duration of the album that it makes their missteps stand out that much more glaringly. After building up a hell of a lot of goodwill with its majestic instrumental opener “Selenite,” the band launch into a rote screamfest that fails to impress (the title of which is very long, and very French). This happens a couple of times over the hour-long record, and it’s always a little dispiriting, because while the band are certainly capable of delivering a decent beating, it’s just not what they do best. The vocals are by-the-numbers throat-shredding, mixed way back and totally superfluous. The band would do well to lose the vocals altogether, a common problem among similar bands. But even when they’re resorting to straight-up metallic assaults, Year Of No Light are still a few steps up from your average longhairs.

Despite its flaws, Nord is one hell of a promising start from a band that already stands out from its peers. France’s underground metal scene has produced a shitload of winners recently, and these guys easily stand their ground with any of them. I think by the time the experience from one more LP rolls around, Year Of No Light will be unstoppable. Good stuff.
yearofnolight.free.fr
www.crucialblast.net

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Lucas Salg

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