Sólstafir unveil a gorgeous new live video as they discuss their new album

Features
By ( Metal Hammer ) published

Atmospheric Icelandic voyagers Sólstafir say farewell to the Ótta album with a live video for the sublime Dagmál track

Sólstafir promo pic, by Falk-Hagen Bernshausen
(Image credit: Falk-Hagen Bernshausen)

As anyone who’s entered into the panoramic world of Sólstafir will know, aside from producing some of the most psychedelically spinetingling music to have emerged from the metal lava fields, the four-piece also have a habit of making stupendously cinematic promo videos set amongst the vast, humanity-humbling landscapes of their native Iceland.

It turns out that they make pretty spectacular indoor ones too. The four-piece are about to release a new video for the track Dagmál, taken from the four-piece’s universally celebrated Ótta album and shot live in various venues over the course of 18 months.. Featuring slow-motion close-ups of the band, seas of faces in lost in ecstatic reverie, a song that’s basically to your deepest buried emotions what full moons are to tides, and a moment of such sublime catharsis at 3:20 that you won’t know what to do with yourself, Dagmál is a marriage of the intimate and the epic, the far-flung and the close-to-heart, and you can watch and yearn right here.

The release of Dagmál marks the end of the Ótta album cycle, as the band have renewed their contract with Season Of Mist and have already started working on a follow-up opus with renowned producers Birgir Birgirsson (Sigur Rós, Alcest) and Jaime Gomez Arellano (Ghost, Cathedral, Paradise Lost, Oranssi Pazuzu).

”We are back here at Sundlaugin studio for the third time to record our seventh album,” says frontman Adalbjörn “Addi” Tryggvason. “We feel right at home and after being locked up in songwriting mode for two months, it is a one of a kind feeling hearing the demos gaining life. We have 14 songs recorded, including one cover version, but at the moment it’s too early to tell what will end up on the album. The new album will definitely sound like Sólstafir and as always, there will be surprises too.”

”I feel humbled to have the opportunity of working with Sólstafir,” adds Jaime. “As a fan of the band for many years, I have been trying to work with them before and now it is finally happening. So far it has been a great, creative and positive experience. Working alongside Birgir in his beautiful Studio Sundlaugin has been very productive and fun. I am very excited about the new material.”

Hike your way to Sólstafir’s Facebook page here

And get all the all the Sólstafir merch your tender heart desires here!

Jonathan Selzer
Jonathan Selzer

Having freelanced regularly for the Melody Maker and Kerrang!, and edited the extreme metal monthly, Terrorizer, for seven years, Jonathan is now the overseer of all the album and live reviews in Metal Hammer. Bemoans his obsolete superpower of being invisible to Routemaster bus conductors, finds men without sideburns slightly circumspect, and thinks songs that aren’t about Satan, swords or witches are a bit silly.