SOLSTAFIR
Announced as Co-Headliner for
Fire in the Mountains Fest 2020
Icelandic rock giants SÓLSTAFIR will be co-headlining Fire in the Mountains Festival 2020! The fest, which is presented by 2020’s featured curator Ivar Bjornson (ENSLAVED), will take place from July 10-12 at Heart 6 Ranch in Moran, WY. The full lineup, ticket info, lodging, and more can be found HERE.
ICYMI: On October 19, 2019, Icelandic rock giants SÓLSTAFIR performed an intimate set during a live appearance at KEXP Studios in Seattle, WA as part of Reykjavik Calling. which was presented by Iceland Naturally in conjunction with Taste of Iceland, a 10-day festival that highlights the very best of Iceland’s culture, showcasing the nation’s cuisine, music, literature, and film with a variety of events throughout the city. KEXP has since shared the footage of the performance, which can be seen at THIS LOCATION.
SÓLSTAFIR embody the ever-turning wheel of seasons with their shifting light, darkness, and colours, extreme Northern climate, the stark contrasts, the closeness of beauty and deadly forces of nature, the impressive sceneries that have the bones of ancient gods enshrined in them like hardly any other band in every aspect of their existence.
SÓLSTAFIR are not like any other band. Their latest album, ‘Berdreyminn’ underscores this statement. As its title “a dreamer of forthcoming events” aptly describes, the four Icelanders have taken their already impressive evolution one step further. The band has continued to amalgamate haunting melodies, psychedelic phases, as well as strong undercurrents of classic rock and hard rock with echoes of their metal past. Yet SÓLSTAFIR‘s focus is not on style but pure emotion. ‘Berdreyminn’ is eclectic by a conscious choice to make feelings audible and transform taste as well as texture to sound. Genre borders are not broken but simply ignored. Musical influences are gathered from a wide range of sources, re-arranged, and woven into new patterns. Melancholy, longing, anger, joy, pleasure, pain, and other emotions are fulling this album.
Despite leaning clearly towards an expression that can be described as rock today, SÓLSTAFIR have their roots in metal as their debut full-length ‘Í Blóði og Anda’ (2002), which translates as “In Blood and Spirit” still witnesses. Instead of today’s Icelandic gravel throated siren chants, frontman Aðalbjörn Tryggvason spat forth vitriolic crusty vocals and all strings were forged with black metal. Already their next albums ‘Masterpiece of Bitterness’ (2005) and ‘Köld’ (2009) marked stations of a continuous evolution. SÓLSTAFIR went further along their solitary path and obviously left any categorising box with the ground-breaking follow-ups ‘Svartir Sandar’ (2011) and ‘Ótta’ (2014), which received high critical acclaim and attracted new fans in equal measure, while managing the difficult feat of keeping most of their earlier following too.
SÓLSTAFIR have set sails to new horizons with ‘Berdreyminn’. Yet the Icelanders brought their home with them and the silhouette of their vessels remains easily recognisable. Welcome aboard on a new adventurous musical journey into uncharted territories.
Line-up
Aðalbjörn Tryggvason: guitar, vocals
Svavar Austmann: bass
Sæþór Maríus Sæþórsson: guitar
Hallgrímur Jón Hallgrímsson: drums, backing vocals
For more on SÓLSTAFIR, visit their official FACEBOOK, TWITTER, INSTAGRAM, and WEBSITE.
