PREMIERE: Sólstafir – Lágnætti video

Sólstafir’s reputation for making some of the most enrapturing, heartfelt and genre-busting music on the planet is growing rapidly as everyone along the metal spectrum and beyond falls under the transformative spell of the Icelanders’ latest album Ótta.

What may be less known is that the band have a knack for making videos every bit as epic as their music and the vast, awe-inspiring landscapes it’s drawn from. After 2011’s Svartir Sandir album gave up the windswept anthem Fjara and a spectacular, cinematic video to match that’s since garnered over two million views, long-term Sólstafir followers have been wondering how on Odin’s earth they’re going to follow it. The answer is the equally unforgettable Lágnætti, a nine-and-a-half-minute musical and visual masterpiece directed once more directed mega-cinematographer Bowen Staines and yet again proving how peerless Sólstafir have become.

With gratitude to the band and the good people at Season Of Mist Records, Metal Hammer is inordinately proud to host the world premier of a video that raises the bar to rarefied and sense-overwhelming heights. If you want a sudden yet abiding urge to lose yourself in the Icelandic wilderness, cryptic storylines, naked ginger men in a bath, pretty much literal playing with fire, and your heart stretched beyond breaking point, give yourself over to the soul-charging journey that is Lágnætti below!

See Sólstafir live at the Dome in London on 31st October and at Damnation Festival at Leeds University Union on 1st November.

Take shelter at Sólstafir’s Facebook page.

And order up a magical Ótta here!

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.