Solstafir
Kold

Solstafir is an Icelandic band that produces a Doom Metal rich with pathos and sadness. The terrible flaw of the band is that they tend to stretch things out.

The album opens with the instrumental 78 Days In The Desert, a splendid piece characterized by a continuous succession of majestic and immense breaks and more intimate phases. The track is very representative of their style, and much of their content can be found therein: very dirty and slowly, inexorably relentless guitars, like a tsunami looming in the background lazily advancing; essential drumming with very few technicalities and a bass that seems like the desperate gasp of a dying man. Only one element is missing, their pinnacle, I am talking about the voice of their frontman with an unpronounceable name: Aðalbjörn Tryggvason: a singer with undeniable charisma and a great voice, powerful, warm, and at the same time a silent sign of emotional instability and despair to the highest levels. The singing is always clean, although one can often hear a voice screaming full-throated and angrily, from a master!

The title track is a small masterpiece. Those guitar slashes directly hit the heart, that frantic rhythm makes us want to run away and hide, that dreamlike crescendo of despair and rage at its peak is simply terrifying... until the central break. The atmosphere relaxes, a little organ comes into play and the guitar limits itself to calmly arpeggios, supported by the bass. The voice becomes soft (who thought Icelandic could be sweet? listen to believe!) and resigned, like a mother's lullaby to her cancer-stricken child, like a wife speaking to her dying husband. And suddenly the tension releases, and a furiously heavy part begins, an unreal rage that bursts from suddenly dark and tribal drumming and guitars that seem to double their firepower, from that powerful yell at the end, which makes us understand the vanity of all that pain: Í dögun birtist þú!! (the coming of the dawn, let us not forget that there is very little sun for 6 months a year in Iceland!). The keyboard conclusion leaves us in tears.

Pale Rider continues the discourse of Kold but does so with less charisma and in heavier tones, while She Destroys Again presents a more rocking composition, but less elaborate and incisive compared to the other tracks. Both pieces are capable of exhausting the listener in terms of sonic impact.

With Necrologue, the album regains a lot in emotional impact. The English lyrics (which could probably be a sort of farewell message from a suicide) are moving and depressing at the same time. The bass that introduces everything exceptionally supports the melody and holds it up at the weaker points, also enriching the piece with mixed sound effects, such as various reverses that add much to the overall atmosphere. In the central part, after a sudden harshening of the voice, the guitar starts to shine devastatingly, almost echoing a distant life, a happy life. The calm finale then reaches insane heights. The listener remains there, listening to those melancholic verses until unexpectedly "_Maybe this is not the end, my friend, Maybe I will see you soon again_". One remains paralyzed, as if to say, "and what has he done now?", and suddenly... the guitar sweetly retraces the melody of the piece in solitude, repeats it, softens it, to prepare us for the inevitable and terrible tragic conclusion. Masterpiece.

World Void Of Souls is a piece with almost ambient tones, with an audio recording that testifies to the protagonist's madness, torn between a search for sunlight and a testimony of the existence of a mythical woman, who in the end turns out to be none other than the joy itself. "Happiness DID exist".

Love Is The Devil is a slightly more conventional and technical track, with a style that can even faintly remind one of U2.

The final piece is the third masterpiece of the album: Goddess Of The Ages. It expands Kold, incorporates Necrologue, and introduces a voice of impressive harshness. The guitar hurts like never before and there is a wonderfully integrated inclusion of some distant, stellar piano notes that give the track absolutely moving tones, contrasted with a heavy metal hardness that creates a splendid contrast.

A great album!