There are moments in life when you recognize an instant rapport, be it after a few minutes of dinner party banter or when you sink into the first few arcs of an inaugural run and your skis respond as if your connection were telepathic.

This is how the new Nordica GT 84 Ti EVO introduces itself, as accommodating as the most obsequious servant, unassumingly tearing the mountain to ribbons while ferrying its master, unperturbed, to the end of the gravity stream. Before this season, no one could have ever skied the GT 84 Ti EVO as none existed, yet taking it for a spin feels like coming home.

Nordica isn’t new to the carving ski rodeo, but this is a new pony. Gone (perhaps for good?) is all the EDT hoo-hah that was affixed to the top of the Fire Arrow 84 of yore, a thunderbolt of a ski that was always in a hurry to get somewhere faster than a photon. The GT 84 Ti EVO uses the same minimalist matrix of Titanal – called, turgidly enough, Energy 2 Titanium Torsion Bridge – as found in their NRGY collection, only the GT 84 doubles the dosage to top and bottom laminates.

The change in construction is key, for it unlocks the Nordica carver’s ability to make a multiplicity of turn shapes and remain compliant even if it isn’t moving at the brisk pace it prefers. Steve Sheehan, honcho chez Bobo’s and an elegant skier, compressed the GT 84 Ti EVO’s convivial comportment into 6 words: “It skied, I just followed along.”