Review: Northern Plague “Scorn the Idle”

It’s time to visit the country where I was born, grew up and lived first 35 years of my life. NORTHERN PLAGUE doesn’t come from my home-city, voivodeship or even area. Their name can suggest that the band has its headquarter somewhere in northern part of Poland. And this is truth, even if there’s many cities who are situated further on the north. But Białystok is just the largest one in north-east part of my country where almost 300.000 people live. History and so on is interesting of course, but the most important thing for us is that there was always quite strong Metal and Grind scenes – at least as long as I remember and I’m into the Underground since 90’s.

Well, NORTHERN PLAGUE Is a middle age band over there, as far as I know. It was created in 2009 and except this reviewing album, they have recorded EP Blizzard of the North (2011) and debut full-length Manifesto (2014). As you can see, these guys compose their music very carefully and it always takes more or less three years to release next stuff, until now at least. The band’s line-up changes oftenly. Anyhow, I found two descriptions of what they play: Black/Death Metal on Encyclopedia Metallum and Modern Death Metal on the Facebook’s page. Well, I know that there are only words, but since their the main function is to let you (these ones who don’t know the band) know what to expect, they’re not meaningless – even contrary. And my job as a reviewer is to tell you this, make it easier to you to decide if the album is worth of spending few bucks on it or not. So even if I don’t like to compare bands to each other, sometimes I have to do such things.

Anyways, the first term is closer to what NORTHERN PLAGUE serve us. And honestly, there’s much more Black then Death here. You can quite easily recognize some elements of this second one like some riffs. But in my opinion Black dominates in this music. I found out that many people compare band from Białystok to the most controversial Metal band in Poland, and maybe even worldwide. I know their creativity well, even if I like it until Pandemic Incantations (then albums aren’t so bad, but there’s nothing special in them, too), and tell you what. I can’t see any huge similarities, maybe some of them are between what we’re able to hear here and in … From the Pagan Vastlands or And The Forests Dream Eternally, but also them are rather far, I guess. Vocal is different and tempo generally middle, sometimes even quite slow with some speed-ups. Melodic riffs and crying guitar will buy you for sure – of course if you’re a fan of such playing having some touches of Greek style. Well, in comparison with mentioned above stuffs our Polish friends present more Death approach to the matter.

To sum up, this is good album and listening to it gives a dose of pleasure, somehow you even can some relax during this.