• Blog
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • About
  • Contact
  • FAQ
  • Forum
Angry Metal GuyAngry Metal Guy
  • Blog
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • About
  • Contact
  • FAQ
  • Forum

Sólstafir – Endless Twilight of Co-Dependent Love Review

By Carcharodon on November 2, 2020 in Reviews, Post-Metal, 27 comments

Icelandic post-metal titans Sólstafir need little introduction but we at AMG Towers are fans of formulaic, masturbatory prose, so I’ll provide one anyway. Sólstafir is Icelandic for ‘radiating sun beams,’ something I have always thought to be wildly inaccurate as a name for this entity, which at no point embodies sunshine. In their early days, Sólstafir played raw, aggressive black metal, interspersed with hints of Viking metal and occasional atmospheric passages (see the debut, Í blóði og anda). Since then, with each release, Sólstafir have evolved, peaking, many would argue, on their fifth full-length, 2014’s Ótta. Building on the subtleties and beautiful moods of its predecessor, Svartir Sandar, Ótta was the recipient of a very rare 5.0/5.0, and from none other than Madam X herself, who described it as a “work of art.” 2017’s Berdreyminn got a somewhat more muted reception, however, at least in part down to some serious production issues. It’s fair to say that I liked the hard-rockin’ stylings of Berdreyminn a little more than Madam X, and Ótta a little – though only a tiny smidge – less than her. So, where on this spectrum of good to iconic does Sólstafir’s latest outing, Endless Twilight of Co-Dependent Love, find itself?

The gorgeous cover art1 belies the dark and heavy subject matters that Endless Twilight addresses. Like much of Sólstafir’s catalogue, the record is delivered – bar one song – in their native Icelandic. Taking as its central theme the mental health issues that plague so many people in today’s world, the record is drenched in misery and pain. Its sole English language track, “Her Fall from Grace,” is the harrowing tale of watching a loved one succumb to mental illness. Despite its traumatic themes, however, Endless Twilight shares more DNA, musically speaking, with the upbeat Berdreyminn than it does with Ótta.

From the blues-adjacent opening of the album on “Akkeri,” through the distorted guitar melodies of post-metal epic “Drýsill” to the road-trippin’ chug of “Dionysis,” Sólstafir subtly modulate the tone throughout Endless Twilight. Incorporating elements of the grungy rock of Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness – yes, the similarities run deeper than the cover – and Witchcraft or Graveyard, and the post-metal of Pelican, Endless Twilight draws on influences far and wide, while remaining unmistakably and unquestionably Sólstafir. Tryggvason’s love-em-or-hate-em vocals remain key to this and here we find an urgency to his performance not heard before. Even in slower numbers, like “Til Moldar” and the massive, and haunting closer “Úlfur,”2, Tryggvason brings to life the pain and hurt he is singing about, lending everything he does a sense of tortured vitality.

Endless Twilight feels like Sólstafir looked back at Berdreyminn and thought ‘yeah, that was good but we should have taken a few more risks.’ And so they did. Even as atmospheric electronics beautifully complement the band’s fuzzed guitar tones and upbeat, rock drumming on tracks like “Akkeri,” the mesmeric and beautiful melodic leads of “Drýsill” and “Úlfur” seeped into my brain like tendrils of ice. So far, so wonderfully good. Endless Twilight is not without its challenges, however. First, even ignoring the two bonus tracks that accompanied my review version, this is a long record, comfortably clearing the hour mark and, although there is much to love, it does feel long, with tracks like “Rökkur” contributing little to my experience. This is not helped by the vocals, which I found challenging in two respects. First, the mix puts Tryggvason so front and center – and so loud – that at times I found it off-putting, despite largely being a fan of his coarse, borderline discordant, crooning. Secondly, it bothered me more than ever before that I do not speak Icelandic and, therefore, cannot connect with the tortured messages being belted out. I do, of course, recognize that it is not Sólstafir’s fault I don’t speak Icelandic, nor am I advocating they switch to English, but the prominence given to the vocals really emphasized for me how much I was missing out on with Endless Twilight.

If, like Madam X, you thought Ótta was a perfect record, then you will have issues with Endless Twilight, particularly in its slightly soft middle and the, at times jarring, vocals. For those who enjoyed Berdreyminn but, like me, wished there was just a little bit more of the organic rawness of Svartir Sandar to it, well, Sólstafir listened. Endless Twilight of Co-Dependent Love is not without its faults but is, at its core, an emotive, well-written record, featuring some truly stunning moments like “Drýsill” and “Úlfur,” which suffers slightly under its own weight.


Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Season of Mist
Websites: solstafir.bandcamp.com | solstafir.net | facebook.com/solstafirice
Releases Worldwide: November 6th, 2020

Show 2 footnotes

  1. “The Lady of the Mountain,” painted by Johann Baptist Zwecker in 1864, is the female personification of Iceland and was, until recently, known only to Icelanders by a black and white woodblock replica produced by the artist. Until, that is, the original was discovered hidden in a Welsh museum gallery, of all places, where it had been in storage for a century. Now it is back home in Iceland and, says vocalist/guitarist Aðalbjörn “Addi” Tryggvason, “when we saw this photo, we had to use it. It’s too beautiful.” ↩
  2. The version of Endless Twilight I had for review included two bonus tracks, “Hrollkalda Þoka Einmanaleikans” and “Hann For Sjalfur,” but since neither adds a lot to the package for my money, nor seems to be included in the main release on Bandcamp, I will say no more about them. ↩

Give in to Your Anger:

Tags: 2020, 3.5, Atmospheric Metal, Endless Twilight of Co-Dependent Love, Graveyard, Icelandic Metal, Nov20, Pelican, Post-Metal, Review, Reviews, Season of Mist, Smashing Pumpkins, Solstafir, Witchcraft
« Déluge – Ægo Templo ReviewHelfir – The Journey Review »
« PreviousNext »

Rating System

5.0 - Iconic
4.5 - Excellent
4.0 - Great
3.5 - Very Good
3.0 - Good
2.5 - Mixed
2.0 - Disappointing
1.5 - Bad
1.0 - Embarrassing
0.5 - Unlistenable

COVID-19 and Cancellations

How can you help?

Record o’ the Month

Link to the Record(s) o' the Month post from November 2020Link to the Record(s) o' the Month post from October 2020Link to the Record(s) 0' the Month Post for September of 2020Link to the Record(s) o' the Month Post for August of 2020Link to the Record(s) o' the Month post for July of 2020Link to the Record(s) o' the Month post for June of 2020Link to the Record(s) o' the Month post for May of 2020Link to the Record(s) o' the Month post for April of 2020Link to the Record(s) o' the Month Post for March of 2020Link to the Record(s) o' the Month Post for February of 2020Link to the Record(s) o' the Month Post for January of 2020Link to the Record(s) o' the Year Post for 2019Link to the Record(s) o' the Month Post for October of 2019Link to the Record(s) o' the Month Post for October of 2019Link to the Record(s) o' the Month Post for September of 2019Link to the Record(s) o' the Month Post for August of 2019Link to the Record(s) o' the Month Post for July of 2019Link to the Record(s) o' the Month Post for June of 2019Link to the Record(s) o' the Month Post for May of 2019Link to the Record(s) o' the Month Post for April of 2019Link to the Record(s) o' the Month Post for March of 2019Link to the Record(s) o' the Month Post for February of 2019Link to the Record(s) o' the Month Post for January of 2019

Tags

1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 American Metal Black Metal Black Sabbath Canadian Metal Death Metal Doom Metal English Metal Finnish Metal Folk Metal French Metal German Metal Heavy Metal Iron Maiden Italian Metal Melodic Death Metal Morbid Angel Norwegian Metal Opeth Post-Metal Power Metal Progressive Metal Review Reviews Self Released Slayer Swedish Metal Thrash Metal

Blogroll

  • Heavy Blog is Heavy
  • Metal Bandcamp
  • Metal-Fi
  • No Clean Singing