Label: Prophecy Productions
Artist: GlerAkur
Origin: Iceland

Like ‘Metallica covering the live half of Pink Floyd‘s 1969 album Ummagumma.’ That’s how GlerAkur, the project moniker of Elvar Geir Sævarsson, has been described. Working as the sound engineer at the National Theater of Iceland, he takes inspiration from drone, post rock and ambient, yet also far heavier stuff.

‘The Mountains Are Beautiful Now’ is the first full-length, following a 2016 EP, that was already nominated for the Icelandic Kraumur Award. This massive work features four guitars, two drummers and was recorded in the theatre basement as music for the play ‘Fjalla-Eyvindur & Halla’ by Jóhann Sigurjónsson.

Have you ever stood on a high hill or even a mountaintop, watching the snow-covered peaks as far as the eye can see? Because that is what awaits you from the first notes of ‘Augun Opin’. A slowly swelling piece of majesty that hardly knows an equal, with the humming of the earth, the cracking of ice and sonorous beauty of the void beyond. The bludgeoning sound of ‘Can’t You Wait’ and distant singing is a particular experience. It is not unfamiliar for those who enjoy a good bit of black metal or doom where the mystique and splendor of the unknown are expressed. Repetitive, yet featuring a meandering melody, woven into its sonic density, it captivates you. Setting you to dream of mountains.

The song ‘HallAlone’ feels like an intermezzo, with gentle, ambient tunes that merge into grand post-rock with that melancholy so familiar with the genre. A clarity can be found in the sound of GlerAkur, that doesn’t really know any equals. It just flows on its own, natural pace.  Massive as mountains, but with all those refined details that come with it, this piece of music becomes a piece of beauty. A work of of untarnished nature, shaped and formed not by endless tinkering, but the elements. Final track ‘Fagurt er á fjöllunum núna’ is gentle. Guitar picking, like drops, resounds. It is where the intricacies of the music are really shown again.