ISAFJØRD, literally meaning ‘fjord of ice’, is a shining new ethereal post-rock band from Iceland. Named after the town that both of their fathers came from, Ísafjörður, Aðalbjörn Addi Tryggvason (Sólstafir) and Ragnar Zolberg (Sign/ex-Pain of Salvation) sculpt beautiful and desolate pop, as bright and dark as the sub-arctic seasons. Holed up in the middle of winter, in an old house with a broken piano in the freezing cold, Hjartastjaki is an album of songs that were written straight from the heart, sometimes in a single day. Their chemistry is as immediate as the climate they survive in, and is a real meeting of spirits, with Ragnar’s sleek and cherubim voice to brilliantly counterpoint Addi’s dusty and aching cries, over orchestrated build-ups of soaring piano and sliding guitars. The catchy and haunting music that Addi and Ragnar create in Isafjørd is just as familiar in the same way a lived-in, well-worn great song can touch your soul. Having both lived in Norway and speaking Norwegian, Addi and Ragnar speak the same language of the heart, as their Nordic melancholy makes for deep and mountainous music. Isafjørd’s songs are sincere icebergs of tundra-anthems that bring to mind Fields Of The Nephilim and Duran Duran jamming in a frozen valley, where the creative 80s new wave sound meets GodSpeed You Black Emperor. With influences that range from Cardigans, Beatles, early Judas Priest and Neil Young, Addi and Ragnar have struck a vein of gold that crystallises their own heritage of wide-screen metal gloom into something new. | 
