Deft envelope-pushing mix of diverse genres? Check. Starkly beautiful melodies? Check. Iceland’s premier metal outlaws Sólstafir return with their stunning latest album, Hin helga kvöl.
Never content to stay within any genre’s boundaries, this latest offering emphasises the group’s goth side – ‘Sálumessa,’ for example, is a beautiful marriage of Bauhaus and post-rock. It’s not all thick eyeliner and hairspray, however. The lush, reverb-soaked guitar sound the band favours imbues the album with a heady atmosphere, coming to the fore on tracks like ‘Vor ás’.
But it’s not all atmospherics with no substance. Like sunlight through the clouds, Aðalbjörn Tryggvason’s haunting vocals pierce through everything, making emotive moments like ‘Freygátan’ into real heartbreakers. ‘Sálumessa’ offers a pensive, introspective side that’s seldom heard, while ‘Vor ás’ brings to the fore the frantic urgency that only Tryggvason can pull off.
All of this is contrasted by the proggy black-metal on which the band made their name, a sound most notable on songs like the title track and ‘Nú mun ljósið deyja’. The title track shows off an emotionally-charged blackgaze similar to the output of bands like MØL and Deafheaven, while the latter feels as if it was pulled forward in time from Sólstafir’s own early works. These furious black metal displays offer a stark counterpoint to the album’s more oneiric atmospherics, but never drown them out – ‘Nú mun ljósið deyja’ is just as heavy on the reverb as ‘Sálumessa’.
This heady blend of goth-tinged atmospherics and black metal might sound far-fetched and messy, but Sólstafir pull it off masterfully (as if there was any real doubt). The real experimental flourishes are in album closer ‘Kuml,’ which lays a dreamy saxophone melody over echoing synths and ominous droning guitars, bookended by a baritone voice intoning as if on loan from monastic black-metal outfit Batushka. The full title is “Kuml (forspil, sálmur, kveðja)”, the three words in brackets meaning “prelude”, “hymn”, and “farewell” respectively. A fitting epilogue to an album whose title translates to “Holy Suffering”.
Hin helga kvöl marks not just an evolution of Sólstafir’s unique sound, but also another masterpiece in a long line of them. No one does it better.
