Apocalyptic international power-trio Norna have shared new single ‘Shadow Works’, taken from their self-titled second album, set for release on 30th August, 2024 through Berlin’s Pelagic Records.
Hailing in parts from the icy Swedish northlands and the glacial expanse of the Swiss Alps and named after Norse goddesses who wove the very tapestry of fate underneath the mythical World Tree, Norna are heavy in every sense of the word. Their debut album, 2021’s ‘Star is way way is Eye’ was saturated filth; uncompromising, unrelenting ugliness. However, their eponymous sophomore offering digs its claws deeper into the dirt. Sharpened, hungry and desperate, born of the moment and yet years in the making; ‘Norna’ liberates an old rage that has been suppressed for far too long.
Despite only forming in 2020, the three pillars of Norna bring decades of experience with them. Consisting of Swedish post-hardcore pioneer Tomas Liljedahl (Breach, The Old Wind) and Swiss stalwarts Christophe Macquat and Marc Theurillat (both of instrumental juggernaut Ølten), Norna came together as a perfect storm of abrasive influences, harnessed by friend and producer Magnus Lindberg (Cult of Luna), to create something new, limitless and horrifyingly heavy.
Rather than binding themselves from the outset to any structure or semblance of a song, Norna instead carve their mammoth riffs from a roiling mass of distortion and chaos suspended in the clouds (with Dropbox being the band’s platform of choice); each member remotely adds oppressive layer upon layer over time before the band gather together in the studio to harness only the most vicious combinations. Latest single ‘Shadow Works’ is potent proof of this caustic process; alive with a seething, deep-seated fury as angular, syncopated riffs spiral deliriously above pounding, pummelling drums whilst Liljedahl’s harrowing vocal delivery desperately searches for catharsis amidst the carnage.
Norna’s inimitable, introspective heaviness lays bare the primal rage buried within every one of us. This honesty, the acceptance that deep down we’re all hiding something hideous, goes a long way to explaining why, as discordant, disturbing and disgusting as this album is, it’s simply impossible to stay away.
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‘Norna’ is out 30th August, 2024.
‘Shadow Works’ is out today.
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