Sólstafir is a band who has come a long way in terms of their artistic ability and musical intentions. They began as a Viking metal band, then morphed, as many Viking metal bands tend to, into an arty black metal band. Since then, they've gradually added more post-rock tendencies a la Mogwai or Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and now on their newest album Svartir Sandar, they've reached a new height of artistic mastery.
Sólstafir have been masters of building atmosphere since their excellent first LP Masterpiece of Bitterness, and they've always grafted that atmosphere to pummeling metal textures, making an art rock/black metal blend that sounded like no one else. Svartir Sandar is certainly heavy, but in a much different way than its predecessor albums. This heaviness is built very carefully, with nuance and fantastic attention to detail rather than speed and fury. Paradoxically, it feels like the album's passion comes from its precision, as though each chord and drum hit were carefully placed to perfectly build the drama and emotion necessary to each song, while making it all seem natural and effortless.
When considering arty post-metal, names like Isis, Neurosis, and Pelican immediately spring to mind, but Sólstafir's sound is entirely their own, perhaps owing to both their Scandanavian black metal background and the isolation afforded to them by their native Iceland. It's possible to hear the influences like The Cure, or some of the bleaker 90's rock bands, or perhaps even their countrymen in Sigur Rós, but the overall tone is so sunless and monolithic that it has to be heavily informed by the blackest of metal. The guitars range from gentle to vicious, the thundering rhythm section equals the guitars in their ability to bring the emotional content forward, and singer Aðalbjörn Tryggvason's voice pulls itself from a near whisper to a despairing wail at a moment's notice.
Words largely fail to describe the scope of what transpires over the two discs that make up Svartir Sandar. The sound is immersive, nearly cinematic. It's easier to describe the album as a place that one can go. It's like a continent, huge and dense, but with room to move. Moments that begin as just a wandering guitar line or steady cymbal beat evolve over time into a maelstrom of sound that evokes an atmosphere both unknown and somehow familiar, like a place you may have been in your more monochromatic dreams.
-Review posted by TZARATHUSTRA
