Sólstafir Live in Glasgow - Review
Live Review: Sólstafir, Dialects and Bosphorus – Audio, Glasgow. July 29th, 2015.
From Echoes and Dust
Last Wednesday the mighty Sólstafir returned to Audio in Glasgow, a show I personally looked forward to a lot after having witnessed their very convincing set at last year’s Damnation Festival. While I waited for the doors to open with my gig buddy, and photographer for this night, Bruce Cowie, we both had a laugh at the huge picture of Sólstafir’s singer Aðalbjörn Tryggvason on display on the outside wall of the venue and how this might have been slightly embarrassing for the frontman. This picture was taken at their previous visit to Audio, a show that received mixed feedback, as apparently the sound wasn’t optimal that night and the crowd had troubles being quiet during the more quiet bits in the set. I wasn’t there though, so I’m just speaking from what I’ve heard.
Based on the huge number of Sólstafir t-shirts, hoodies and patches present in the crowd, it was very clear who everyone was looking forward to the most: the Icelandic giants, gradually taking the heavy music world by storm. It surprised me a bit how many extreme metal fans love this band, as they are kinda like a rockier Sigur Rós with added vocals, but they just hit the right emotions and atmosphere I suppose. Yes, they were a lot heavier in the earlier stages of their 20 year spanning career, but I think it’s mostly at last year’s Damnation that they won over a lot of these extreme metal hearts. The band recently had a line-up change and much has been discussed and gossiped about this already, so enough of that and let’s just focus on their live set.
