【grindwerkz】Nortt is probably one of the most interesting and enchanting bands I have ever had the pleasure of hearing. Hailing for Denmark, Nortt is the one-man project of the despondent multi-instrumentalist of the same name, and for those that don’t already know, Nortt manages to combine two opposite extremes of underground Metal; the first of these being dark and evil Black Metal and the other ultra-slow and gloomy Funeral Doom Metal. Needless to say, this is an astonishingly morose combination, a blend of two styles that are poles apart. Nortt dubs his sound as ‘Pure Depressive Black Funeral Doom Metal’ and it’s quite a fitting description. “Ligfrd” is the second real Nortt full-length (excluding the Graven demo CD re-release) and demonstrates that Nortt’s music is as depressingly beautiful as ever. I really have no idea what to say about “Ligfrd” apart from the fact that it succeeds (as with previous Nortt releases) wonderfully in creating an atmosphere that could only be described as cold, desolate and forlorn. “Ligfrd” is a masterpiece which takes a lot out of the listener but gives back so much more. I must say that the best way to listen to this album or any Nortt release for that matter is on headphones in the complete dark preferably somewhere in the outdoors like a forest or graveyard or such environments. Musically speaking, Nortt’s music could easily be described as a macabre funeral procession of ghosts wandering through the hours of darkness obscured by a thick, grey haze. Here, Nortt has conceived straightforward but truly disconsolate melodies made up of simple notes that ring out over chords that reverberate and resound for what seems like an eternity, allowing an aura of death to envelope the listener and embrace them in its cold grasp. The result of this is that the music ends up taking a trance-like form and thus carries the listener to places unknown. Most of the songs are of typical length for this type of genre, all being around eight or so minutes, with the only exceptions being the twelve minute masterpiece that is “Tilforn tid”, the sinister intro “Gudsforladt” and the disturbingly creepy outro title track which are around four minutes each. “Ligfrd” is astonishingly atmospheric and ambient and listening to this album conjures up emotions of complete emptiness and isolation and can end up becoming an intensely spiritual experience provided the circumstances under which the listener is being subjected to the music are right. Either way, for me, Nortt is the very definition of melancholy and the pinnacle of bleakness musically. Sonically and in terms of production, “Ligfrd” is somewhat different to previous Nortt releases (including “Gudsforladt”) in the sense that it is better produced. The trademark Nortt features are all there; from the heavy-as-lead but intensely searing guitar sound to the painfully slow start/stop rythm of the drums and of course, those eerie, snarling Black Metal croaks from the lungs of Nortt himself. But this time around there are some more sonic twists in the production that make “Ligfrd” that much more remarkable. For example, the drums sound like they were recorded inside a vast system of catacombs, with the snare crashing down painfully hard and reverberating for a good few beats throughout the whole musical construction. The keyboards and pianos are cold and bleak, echoing and resonating all the way through, like the chants of a long forgotten undead choir. The powerful atmosphere is half created through the fittingly excellent production and “Ligfrd” succeeds in simultaneously sounding amazingly empty and morbid in addition to sounding alive and energetic. All in all, “Ligfrd” proves to be a mournful masterwork, a truly depressive piece of Metal art conjured up from the most disturbed of minds. This is a true underground Metal gem and a must-have for anyone who is a fan of Black Metal, Doom Metal or even just depressing, beautiful music.