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Solstafir – Endless Twilight of Codependent Love

Florian Buechting Media Review No Comments

Solstafir - Endless Twilight of Codependent Love

Solstafir - Endless Twilight of Codependent Love
4.1

Rating

 4.1/5

Flyctory.com Pros

  • Very characterstic sound and vocals
  • Great harmonic and powerful rock
  • Made in Iceland

Iceland – one of the most painful experiences this year for me. I already had booked a trip to the lovely country for September, but the local Covid-19 regulations changed that massively that I had to withdraw from the travel. Thus, the Reykjavik band Solstafir is unfortunately the only Icelandic content I am likely to present you on Flyctory.com this year. But Iceland is famous for their great music, so that I had quite some hope for good tunes when I received Endless Twilight of Codependent Love (most of the album is Icelandic, though). The longplayer will be released on 6th November 2020.

 

Solstafir – About The Artists

Solstafiir started as a Viking Metal band in Reykjavik, Iceland, the band later developed to psychodelic and alternative rock as well. Nowadays, the band has four members, with Athaldbjörn Tryggvason (vocals, guitar) being the only founding member. Thereby, Solstafir means something light spreading sunlight. The band has been found in 1994 already, originally as a side project. Their first EP was Til Valhallar in 1996, after they received quite good feedback on their intiial demo. The first album took six more years, when the label Ars Metalli released their I blodthi og Anda sorry for not putting all Icelandic letters correctly in this posting). The band grew over time and expecially did quite remarkable chart placements everywhere in Europe with their two last albums, Otta (which is an old way to say 3 a.m., 2014) and the 2017 production Berdreyminn (something like “true dream”).

 

Solstafir – Endless Twilight of Codependent Love – Track by Track

The album includes nine tracks and lasts 63 minutes. Upgraded versions contain two bonus tracks, Hrollkalda Þoka Einmanaleikans ans Hann For Sjalfur.

1. Akkeri

Ten minutes – the first song is already quite a musical statement! Akkeri (“Anchor”). The track has very quiet, almost minimalistic moments, but then turns into symphonic metal and rock track alike parts. Cool song, which partially feels like an instrumental one.

2. Drysill

With “just” about nine minutes, Drysill (something like “Leprechaun”) is almost short compared to the opener. Again, it is a nice composition of melodic guitar parts and scattered vocal elements. Drysill is not that hard and powerful as Aklkeri is, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

3. Rökkur

Rökkur  means dawn in Icelandic. The song starts with violins, other strings, piano – and thus has a very different atmosphere from it s very beginning. What starts a bit like a fairy tale at the beginning, turns into rock after some one and a half minutes. You also listen to electronic sounds here and there. The song is also much more lyrical in its composition and has longer vocal parts. Bad luck that I don’t even have lyrics to review this one. Sounds cool.

4. Her Fall From Grace

Her Fall From Grace starts like a ballad and then turns into a very melodic rock track. One of my favorites of the album.

5. Dionysus

Greek mythology goes hard rock. The Scandinavians give a five minute power track which is – due to the powerful and screaming vocals, even touching darker kinds of metal here and there. A very special track, but definitely a cool one.

6. Til Moldar

Til Moldar is a very different kind of song, more like a very melodic and intense rock ballad. Nice one.

7. Alda Syndanna

I unfortunately already head some trouble to translate the title – Alda Syndanna feels to mean something like “Wave of Disgust”. 4:30 minutes of beautiful slower rock with powerful guitars and very present and characteristic vocals. Solstafir for beginners.

8. Or

After a couple of rather “compact” songs with some 4:30 minutes playtime, the album concludes with two songs with are rather on the epic side. Or has a tiny playtime of seven minutes. Very ballad alike-song again, which is then running in you rocking peaks. Or in Islandic means something like irascible… And that suits quite well to the character of this track quite well – a wild one.

9. Ulfur

With Ulfur (“Wolf”), the final track of this album is doing another very epic song. Again, there are some quiet moment, but the wolf is in fact quite a rocker at the end of a good album.

 

Solstafir – Endless Twilight of Codependent Love – Spotify

Here is the Spotify widget to the album:

 

Solstafir – Endless Twilight of Codependent Love – My View

Characteristic – I feel that this is a good description for the music of Solstafir. I have to admit that I ran into their music – and really enjoyed their very versatile tunes, which never touch to become boring. The album painfully told me that first of all, I deeply miss Iceland (and that I really hate that my 2020 trip there had to be cancelled) – and secondly that I should have invested time in my life into understanding Scandinavian languages better than the floorball basics – I am sure, the album would be even better. Nice, powerful rock tracks with different moments on the very soft and hard side, Definitely a nice listen – and another proof that the Icelandic music scene is just fantastic.

 

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