STIRIAH

 

Origen: Alemania, Berlín/Dresden

Formados: 2007

Estilo: Black

Temática: Misticismo

Enlaces: Bandcamp, facebook y youtube

Miembros:

• Cryst Bajo y voces
• Esgaroth Guitarra y voces
• Ortok Batería
• Tyrann Guitarra y voces

Discografía:

• Night Falls EP 2015  
• Aurora CD 2017  
• The Water Single 2020  
• Into the Depths CD 2020
• ...of Light CD 2022

INTO THE DEPTHS (2020)

Segundo larga duración para esta banda alemana que entrega cinco temas de furioso black metal, centrado en la versión más clásica del género, pero con una producción más elaborada que le da al sonido un aire más actual y potente. Poco tenemos que objetar a un sonido rápido y endiablado que muy pocas veces baja el pistón y que entrega un black agresivo y furioso que si cabe gana intensidad con la inclusión de las voces en una vertiente del todo directa y cruda. En medio de esta violencia y explosivad de sonido con un gusto por mantener un ritmo alto hay que destacar la calidad de los riffs que en sus diferentes capas son capaces de aportar un tono repleto de melancolía al conjunto sin que se resienta la parte más agresiva de su propuesta. Stiriah son capaces de sumergirnos en un álbum que le debe mucho en cuanto a influencias al sonido más clásico del black metal, inspirado en los sonido de los noventa, un sonido con un trémolo directo y sin concesiones, donde el oyente se ve golpeado por un sucesión de riffs agresivos al tiempo que fríos y heladores, todos ellos engarzados en temas de una extensión amplia que nos muestran también un apartado vocal que goza de una salud envidiable en su propuesta más directa, pero que nos trae también algunas segundas voces con distintas propuestas, a veces más death otras como fraseados en segundo plano. Sin embargo lo que trasciende de la audición de este "Into the Depths" es haber asistido a la escucha de un álbum de feroz black metal clásico, rápido, explosivo, conciso y sin fisuras, repleto de acertados riffs y de unas voces perfectamente engranadas, al tiempo que no descuida ocasión de colar melodías imposibles en medio de la maraña de riffs. (8).

1. The Water 08:51  

2. The Sun 09:14  

3. The Light Bearer 06:45  

4. The Darkness 08:12  

5. The Flesh 09:36  

  42:38

Árstíðir Lífsins ‎– Heljarkviða (2 lp blue vinyl) 17,99 €

- full colored jacket

- full colored, heavy inner sleeve with lyrics, info and impressions

- two sides printed A2 poster

- two stickers

- 180g blue vinyl, lim. edition

- playing time over 40 minutes

-description below:

‘Heljarkviða’ is meant to depict the Old Norse kingdom of Helheimr; a place for the slain who suffer a ‘helsótt’, a fatal illness. They are the ones who are not chosen to travel to the joyful and venerated halls of Óðinn and Freyja, but are instead taken to the kingdom of death, to Hel. It was in early 2014 when Árni (Carpe Noctem, Wöljager), Stefán (Kerbenok, Wöljager) and Marsél (Helrunar, Wöljager) initially started to compose music with the intention to set this gloomy mythological realm into music. Caught by the dismal atmosphere that surrounds this interesting place, Stefán wrote the lyrics by mainly focussing on two different poetic sources from the Old Norse corpus: the Eddic poems, of which first and foremost the grand late tenth century Old Norse poem Vǫluspá served as the most important reference, followed closely by poems of contemporary medieval Icelandic warrior skalds such as Egill Skallagrímsson or Gunnlaugr ormstunga and their mythological battle descriptions.

Hel and her same-named kingdom is ambiguously displayed in the primary sources, which is most likely due to the fact that descriptions of the place itself are much older than the ones about the goddess. It is because of this that neither Skaldic and Eddic poetry, nor the impressive corpus of medieval Icelandic saga literature, provide a coherent picture of the place and the potentially numinous figure. The lyrics for this record, therefore, are a combination of what is known about both aforementioned aspects of Hel, set into a mythological telling of a warrior’s death and afterlife.

The text describes a journey of a doomed warrior who fights with his band of Vikings and dies in a blood-driven ecstasy on the battlefield. After his painful death, his body sinks into the blood-covered soil and travels through the chthonic wastelands below, only to arrive to a place where all other slain bodies rot together under the reign of Hel in and around the bleak hall of Éljúðnir, a monstrous building made from the spines of poison-dripping snakes; a place beyond the spheres of time. Through the treacherous shot guided by Loki, Baldr, the brightest of all gods, is sent to Hel and the worlds begin to collapse. Now, at the beginning of Ragnarǫk, the undead people start to wander back to the surface of life to fight at the final battle at Vígríðr. The grand depiction of Ragnarǫk in Vǫluspá gives the most detailed description of this event and its disastrous conclusion in fire when Surtr cleanses the earth with his flaming sword Surtalogi. The slain bodies appear, however, again after all life has been extinguished. Carried by the wings of Níðhǫggr, they fall down to the revitalizing earth to bring back their very own mythological phaenomenon of death.

It is our hope that some of this apocalyptic atmosphere is transmitted through the music, lyrics and visual arts of this very special release.