In Norse mythology, the Norns are responsible for weaving the destinies of the inhabitants of the nine worlds, like the Greek Moires or the Roman Parques. Fate is indeed what Norna is all about... But rather in the sense of doom, or even condemnation. With their eponymous second album, the Swiss-Swedish trio (with Christophe Macquat and Marc Theurillat from Ølten and ex-Breach and The Old Wind Tomas Liljedahl) deliver one merciless sentence after another.
Released at the end of the summer, Norna is definitely not an album to do the conga in flip-flops. Merciless and ferocious, it oozes monolithic darkness from Samsara onwards, whose weight and hypnotic repetitiveness give the flaying howls a flavor both mystical and cosmic. We're reminded of Cult of Luna, of course (whose second drummer and producer Magnus Lindberg produces here), but also Amenra for that ritualistic visceral touch or LLNN for the hallucinatory dimension of the synth strings and that dark opacity. The mix of doom / sludge / post-metal / post-hardcore is enhanced by an icy industrial flavor that reinforces the sense of terror, cruelty and mercilessness, but also a certain spatial mysticism.
Apocalyptic in its heaviness, the album evokes a constant cataclysmic collapse. All is ruin, and Norna adds malice to fatality. The vocals are dirty and vicious, and the band doesn't go for bittersweet nuance or chiaroscuro: black is black, and all the cursors are pushed to the limit, the vocal cords bleeding their black bile into the storm. The guitar doesn't play, it wails and threatens, imposing a sinister, disquieting decor with very little, just like the melody on For Fear of Coming, which emerges from an alienating rhythm like a putrid body tearing itself away from the damp earth.
Despite the radical sound and constant oppression, Norna doesn't foolishly plunge into a tunnel of aggression that loses its impact along the way. On the contrary, between the emotion that bleeds from each scream, the rare breaths offered by the breaks in rhythm (rather than respites, there's the impression of danger lurking in the shadows), creepy, distorted samples (the intro to Shine by itw Own Light and its unholy ceremonial atmosphere of worshipping some filthy thing from a black hole, full of terrified reverence) or hallucinatory guitars (The Sleep, an intense, feverish psychedelic nightmare), Norna gives their album a dizzying relief. To speak of a rollercoaster would be misplaced: here, we don't spend our time going up and down. All we do is plunge into the abyss, again and again, further and deeper.
With Norna, no one will hear you scream. You're small, you're insignificant, your world a pathetic ruin at the mercy of the darkness that's come to devour it. The listener finds himself swept up in a visceral, raging tornado, where cinder blocks and claws are unleashed to better crush our ridiculous souls and shrivel our bodies. It's the kind of album you can't take your mind off, and you'll be counting on to turn off the sun once and for all. The verdict is in: we're all guilty, and the Norns have woven us a future to match our vices, without hope or light.
