SORCIER DES GLACES - North

Sorcier Des Glaces - North (2016, Obscure Abhorrence Productions)

Back in the early 2000s, I was still discovering Black Metal and its most obscure bands of the second wave especially out of Norway. There was a website called American Nihilistic Underground Society whose’s musical reviews were highly influential on me and helped me to discover lesser known bands like SDG. Back then, I ordered directly from ‘’Roby’’ Sébastien Robitaille his first CD that he burned himself and printed the jacket from his computer. It was Snowland that he recorded by himself and sold almost as in the vein of tape trading back in the days. Shortly, we met at the record store he used to work for and I was a regular customer for many years after and he began to make me discover many of his favorite albums and talked a lot about his SDG project, that was on a hiatus back then, and his current project Moonlyght as well as Passages, Doom metal entry. It’s been many years since I’ve talked to Roby but I kept following his musical path because I always felt that he was carrying the essence of Black Metal.

His latest offer, North is a melodic Black Metal monolith of 53 minutes of superbly mastered and produced icy Black Metal. The longevity and the continuity of an artist can be categorized in two distinct ways in the Black Metal genre : first you have those who have made such a strong debut that they feel the need to repeat their winning formula or those who are constantly getting better at their craft because they feel that they can get better with time. Sorcier Des Glaces definitely is in the second category.

With North, Roby and his accolyte Luc Gaulin on drums, who’s doing an amazing job by the way, have outdone themselves. With strong songs like ‘’North’’, ‘’Rites of the Black Moon’’, and ‘’La Noirceur Éternelle’’ we know and can name some influences but we easily can recognize the SDG signature of quality in the songs and in the production.

Most like Norway, Québec’s weather can be quite cold, snowy, and inspiring for its artists. This comparison stands well as SDG’s music is linked with Norse Black Metal in its form and tenure but they are also distinct from each other as their language and incarnations, both still essential. North might be one of the most accomplished albums by Sorcier Des Glaces and is one of the most impressive Black Metal releases of 2016.

8.5