Arstidir Lifsins – Jötunheima Dolgferd

Releasedate: 08-10-2010; Label: Ván records
By: Sabine van Gameren

A combination of Black Metal, Folk and very transcendental material, Árstíðir lífsins, coming from Iceland. The band is releasing their debut album “Jötunheima Dolgferd” right now.

Inspired by all what Iceland have to offer this project is made with a lot of choirs. Officially they also have Germany mentioned as location, but everything is in Icelandic language so that fact seem to be less important. These choirs are more important. Sometimes there seem to be too much off that, but in other moments it fits in perfectly. The Black Metal elements set an interesting atmosphere that gets disturbed very rude by the sixth song on the album “Eigi Hefr á Augu, Unnsks Komit San” which reminds to an prayer of Islam. And that for over 7 minutes. Skipping it is the solution, but forgetting is harder. After that the album has troubles to bring you back to the mood of before this interruption.
Furthermore, some of the vocals are not as powerful as they could have been. The instrumental part seems quite interesting, filling up everything when needed.
Overall the album isn’t that bad, just make sure you skip that sixth song and listen to rest of it instead.

Line Up:
Stefán: Guitars, bass, piano, vibraphone, vocals & choirs
Árni: Drums, violin & choirs
Georg: Vocals & choirs
Marsél: Vocals & choirs
Sveinn: Keyboards & effects
Lóretta: Female vocals
Kristófr: Bodhrán
Kristján: Choirs
Colin: Choirs
Þórarinn: Choirs

Tracklist: 01. Sa brots blómin milli hnignunar Marnars barna 02. Morgunn grárri vindhjálmars oku vi Berufjör 03. Velkomin lfi, ávarpar mar sjálfan sig 04. Haka kleifir berja ok brjóta vi enda langrar ferar sinnar 05. Lifu me örum, me num eigin 06. Eigi Hefr á Augu, Unnsks Komit San 07. Margt breytist fyrir or völvanna 08. Vi fundum ntt heimili, langt burtu vestrinu 09. At er stormr ok bláköld vatnssmin litar regna borg

Links:
Arstidir Lifsins MySpace