Sólstafir - Masterpiece of Bitterness

Genre(s) - (Post-)black metal
Origin - Iceland
Year of release - 2005
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 62.78 MB

Iceland! There are many more black metal bands from there than its quickly dwindling number of inhabitants would warrant, but only a handful seem to be actually worth the effort of tracking them down. Sólstafir are one from the latter category, a progressive black metal band with a lot of influences from hardcore, sludge and post-rock. They come across as quite intellectual to me, yet not by far as elitist as most regular bands in the genre. Masterpiece of Bitterness strangely starts off with the main course, an oddly-titled twenty-minute long opus that almost (almost!) makes the rest of the album obsolete. It showcases some dazzlingly expansive atmospheres, made possible in large part by some seriously gnarly, indignantly groaning bass work offsetting the resounding glimmer of the guitars. It's a song, a real bitter masterpiece, in which you can really lose yourself for its entire duration and you may not even need drugs for it - though of course I generally recommend drug use to everybody.

1. I myself the visionary head
2. Nature strutter
3. Bloodsoaked velvet
4. Lux fare
5. Ghosts of light
6. Ritual of fire
7. Náttfari
   

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