Review: Heretoir – Solastalgia
There are records that feel like weather, and “Solastalgia” is one of them. It arrives with the slow breath of autumn, the seson of fading warmth, long shadows, quiet endings, and the sky dimming just before dusk. Heretoir create music for when you sense the year winding down and the world pulling back into itself. The tone is mournful, but never hopeless, balancing despair with a fragile, golden light that seeps through every dissonant chord.
From the first swell of “The Ashen Falls”, the listener is pulled into a landscape both desolate and strangely comforting. The guitars shimmer like mist above still water, while the drums drive the melancholy forward with an almost mechanical persistence. The record finds its footing in the space between black metal urgency and post-rock introspection, blending the two without letting either dominate. “You Are the Night” and “Burial” push toward the emotional peaks of bands like Alcest or Deafheaven, but with more restraint, more weight in the silence between the notes.
“Solastalgia” is generous with its patience-testing moments. The slower middle section (“Rain”, “Dreamgatherer”, “The Heart of December”) drifts toward ambience, allowing mood to eclipse momentum. These passages are beautiful but risk dissolving into background texture. Yet, even when the pace falters, the sense of place remains: fog, grey light, a distant echo of thunder. It’s this atmospheric consistency that turns the album into a true seasonal companion.
The production is clean but not sterile, letting grit and grain breathe through the reverb. Every instrument has a role in shaping the mood rather than fighting for prominence. The harsh vocals are desperate but intelligible, carrying genuine emotion without posturing, while the clean vocals act as fragile counterpoint. It’s this duality that defines Heretoir’s sound: not a battle between aggression and melancholy, but a coexistence, like cold air over warm ground.
Where “Solastalgia” falters is in pacing and repetition. The structure feels circular, revisiting similar emotional and melodic territory more often than necessary. The final third, however, brings things back together. “The Same Hell (MMXXV)” and the closing In Flames-cover tie the record’s themes into a quiet resignation, as if accepting that grief and beauty are inseparable. The world might be burning, but Heretoir make that fire look almost sacred.
“Solastalgia” doesn’t reinvent post-black metal, but it refines it into something deeply personal and seasonally resonant. It’s an album that doesn’t demand attention so much as it lingers beside you, like the last warmth of sunlight before the first frost. For autumn walks, grey mornings, or the first night you see your breath again, few soundtracks will fit better.
