The Ásatrú transit carried out in their last two albums is complete. The ci(r)cle is uttered. The cicle is dead. Long live the circle! When Cornelius and Lars announced a viking focus for their forthcoming stuff, they talked about a journey to Iceland, quoting classic black metal albums among the stuff they were carrying in their backpacks, to get inspiration from; two albums would be released, Red For Fire and Black For Death. Many people revisited and pledged the abhorrent “back to basics” cliches and thought a sort of Vikingligr Veldi 2.0 was on the way. The truth is these guys are inrockuptibles and trodden paths haven't been made for them. Saxophones, heavenly female voices, violins, death metal leanings... a sorted and assorted chaos, a balanced turmoil; that's Solefald.

The opening track is one of the best songs ever composed by Solefald, a perfect piece of music which starts off with a gypsy ressonance tune (don't ask me why... blame it on my deranged intuition and instinct) and turns into a furious metal attack. Damned excellent. Then, short tracks impersonating intros alternate with “real” songs. That's a flaw of this album, in my opinion. These shorties become a bit annoying, if not simply unnecessary, used just as openers instead of being inside the songs as melted melodic lines. Putting poems next to instrumentals may resemble very epic and concept-like, but it dismisses the focus of the album. As far as the songs are concerned, here we find metallic attacks bursting up euphoria and a memorable melodic taste, adorned with the traditional shifts between clean and dirty vocals. The guitar tone and execution is closer to death metal than black metal in some riffs, but in the end you are in that no man's land where black and death metal collide and haze to the benefit of the music itself, the thing left in the listener's mind after the experience. And “Allfathers” is exquisite, stylistic discussions aside. The classic Solefald style, hardly defined as the style out of styles, the subversion of patterns, or the ultimate avantgarde musical expressionism, is here also present. Compared to Red For Fire, the crimson one was more joint and homogeneous and maybe this blacky is sparse and meanders too much sometimes. However, sonic neonists treading unfathomable artistic fields as these guys are, they deserve comprehension and a fair judgement and that´s just a devilish detail unable to spoil significantly the whole opus. Ask Loki if you wish... Yours truly doesn't consider himself as a blind, knee-bleeding follower either. Not all that glitters is amber, and “Silver Dwarf” is too boring and monotone, and the melody is dead simple, I don't understand what is this song doing here. Anyway, the highlights of the black album are more impressive than in the previous one, from my point of view.

Lyrically wise, these albums are absolutely devoid of viking sagas, and this chapter should demand several lines here, something maybe left for an article aside about the matter. To sum it all up, ancient resources and metaphors (“kenningar”), the old true spirit of those magnificent medieval documents and stories, and the rich Norse mythology are strongly evoken and breathen through the reading of the song texts, summoned by free-thinker, creator and man-of-his-time Herr Cornelius Jakhelln (recently awarded in their homeland country for his novel “Gudenes Fall”). They give metal and art a good name. May the gods protect their lives. Solefald stand proud.

written by Fjordi

Playing time: 52:39