Svartir Sandar

The title of this Icelandic quartet's fourth album means black sands. It was built as a double record with six songs on each disc and Season of Mist released it on 14 October 2011. The band started in black metal; almost none of that is audible here, and what replaced it is slow repetition and long climbs used to describe landscape. Adalbjorn Tryggvason's guitar and voice are at the centre, with Saethor Marius Saethorsson on the second guitar, Svavar Austmann on bass and Gudmundur Oli Palmason on drums. From outside the band, Gunnar Ben arranged and conducted, Halldor A. Bjornsson played keyboards and electric piano, Steinar Sigurdsson saxophone and Gerdur G. Bjarklind spoke. Fredrik Reinedahl produced and mixed and Goran Finnberg mastered it in Gothenburg. Every lyric is in Icelandic and not one title is in English. "Fjara", the second song, became the band's best known; its video was shot in July 2011 and released in January 2012. The first disc holds the more open songs, while the second sinks from "Stormfari" through the title track into the near thirteen minutes of "Djakninn", which is where splitting it in two starts to pay.