ENDLESS TWILIGHT OF CODEPENDENT LOVE

Sólstafir have lurked for years on the boundaries of my musical radar, but it is only with their seventh album, Endless Twilight of Codependent Love, that the Icelanders have fully captured my attention. The band needs little introduction to a metal audience. Starting as a black-metal trio, they quickly evolved into a post-metal / post-rock act, with a distinctive sound that retains the noisy grittiness of their black origins, but opens it up to vast melodic vistas saturated with melancholia and nostalgia. With lyrics often written in Icelandic and sung by Addi Tryggvason in a coarse and unpolished vocal style, Sólstafir sound pretty much like no other band.

On Endless Twilight of Codependent Love, the band continue to refine their unique style suspended between beauty and ugliness, melody and noise, awe and anger. The class and nonchalance with which they flip between these extremes is astounding. For example, in the middle of the album we are faced with a fast, blackened assault with shrieking vocals and thunderous drums ("Dionysus") that is enclosed between two slow, heart-rending ballads ("Her Fall from Grace" and "Til Moldar"). The sequence of tracks sounds improbable, but Sólstafir somehow manage to pull it off, making the transition feel natural, almost inevitable. Elsewhere, we are surprised with a foray in bluesy territories ("Or"), while opener "Akkeri" displays the dirtier rock side of the band, with walls of fuzzy guitars (what a gorgeous sound!) coming and going in waves as Addi Tryggvason screams all his anguish at the top of his lungs. Other tracks follow a more standard post-rock canon, with slow build-ups that stretch the music into lysergic shapes ("Drýsill"; "Rökkur"; "Alda Syndanna").

The varied assortment of influences and styles could have quickly spiralled out of control in less capable hands. Yet Sólstafir manage to merge them into a coherent whole, making each influence their own. The end result is that one feels that it is not so much the various genres Sólstafir borrow from that define their identity, but rather the other way around: they make each genre sound like Sólstafir.

It's a remarkable display of maturity from four musicians that clearly feel confident in their own skin. The risks they occasionally indulge in taking throughout Endless Twilight of Codependent Love are witness to this. In the middle of "Akkeri", for example, the song breaks down before reprising with a loud metronome click dominating in the mix. It's disorienting at first, but it somehow makes sense in the context of the piece. Or take "Rökkur", one of the best tracks on the album: it opens slowly with orchestral flourishes that remind me of King Crimson's "Moonchild", before developing in a rumbling low-tone drone with hallucinated vocals, a strange combination that gives the track a mesmerizing atmosphere.

Endless Twilight of Codependent Love is not all roses and rainbows, though. Compositionally, some pieces feel a bit drawn-out and repetitive, and would have probably benefitted from some cutting down ("Her Fall from Grace", for instance). The album as a whole is also quite lengthy (1 hour and 18 minutes with the two bonus tracks; still in excess of 1 hour without bonus tracks) and I confess that a tad of listening fatigue started to kick in towards the end of the album. Then there is Addi's voice, strained, half of the time on the verge of breaking out of tune: it is definitely an acquired taste ? like it or hate it. I personally find it full of pathos, but I can see how some might be put off by it.

Nevertheless, Endless Twilight of Codependent Love is a strong album. Packed with a high dose of crescendos and desperate melodies, it makes for a bleak but somehow moving and uplifting listening experience. And while it may not win any new converts to the band, it will no doubt not fail to impress those who already count Sólstafir among their favourite bands.

(Originally written for The Metal Observer)

Sólstafir's last two albums?Ótta and Berdreyminn?have both been mixed bags. Some songs demonstrate their former blend of black metal and post-rock which they expressed so amazingly on Svartir Sandar. However, they've also leaned heavily into the general uninteresting murkiness of post-rock. Endless Twilight is definitely a step up over Berdreyminn. I like that metal makes up a larger portion of this album, and the gentler moments feel more purposeful. This release feels like it will grow on me. Though after a couple listens, it still feels overlong, and some songs (most notably "Alda Syndanna") simply aren't landing.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2020/11/30/odds-ends-november-30-2020/