(Andy Synn has a new favourite artist/album he needs to share with you, in the form of Norna)
The phrase “Post Metal” is one of those genre terms which doesn’t necessarily have an agreed definition.
Some people use it to refer mostly to what are, in essence, Post-Rock bands who’ve decided to use certain more metallic elements (usually meaning a more heavily distorted guitar tone along with the occasional burst of blastbeats) while others reserve it for bands who exist on the more atmospheric end of the Sludge/Hardcore spectrum (most of the big names in the scene started out like this, for example).
For Swedish trio Norna, however, their approach to “Post-Metal” is all about attempting to refine things down to their raw essence, beneath and beyond the flashy technicality and mindless machismo so often still associated with the genre, to achieve the Platonic ideal of pure auditory weight and distortion-driven emotion.
And while their debut didn’t quite manage to achieve this – admittedly impossible – task, the band’s self-titled second album comes closer than most to achieving artistic apotheosis in molten metallic form.
