By Monk
Kröflueldar was the name given to a nine year series of volcanic eruptions in Iceland, an historic island known for its almost continuously primordial igneous activity and upheaval. Given that it took Altari a similar amount of time to record this, their debut opus, it is an apposite and appropriate title for this equally smouldering and potentially explosive offering.
Very much reflective and resonant of the beautifully bleak Icelandic landscape which serves as its backdrop, ‘Kröflueldar’ is a dense and dynamic album filled with sonic contrasts which ebb and flow into one another to produce an hypnotic and entrancing album. One moment you are listening to the sort of discordant noise thrash with which VoiVod fans will be familiar, the next there’s a neat little avant-jazz post-punk inflection that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Sonic Youth or Swans offering or the sort of gothic mysticism that first drew you over to the meanderings of The Cocteau Twins. All knitted and moulded together with a mysterious sonic glue that also binds it to your aural memories with permanent effect.
‘Kröflueldar’ is indeed a mysterious and mystifying album. It is intriguing on every level. At first listen, it doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. But, the more you explore it, and its complexity, its diversity, its eclecticism, the more you are rewarded for doing so. While very much rooted in the ancient BM mien, ‘Kröflueldar’ offers so much more. It is rich and luscious, especially in its production. Despite its darkened dankness, it is weirdly enlightening and enervating.
- ‘Kröflueldar‘ is out now.
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