Hallatar – No Stars Upon The Bridge

"No one can fill this void I have found

for centuries it has walked with me"

Losing someone dear literally or figuratively is probably the most visceral fear out there. The nemesis comes uninvited and befalls on unforeseen times, a stark reality dawns upon and the faces we knew so well will remain only in our memories. What is then left for those cursed to live on without their loved ones ? Rekindle the flame, let the light shine a bit more, let the world know how much you miss them.

There are many a records that are dripping with melancholy and are drenched in desolation but in most cases the sadness is an artistic choice. The men behind Hallatar never had a choice, their sorrow is justified and their loss was and still is painful. Let me present to you the most emotionally heavy record that gazed my senses.

Hallatar is Aleah Starbridge and this record is about her life and her death through the eyes of her partner Juha Raivio of the band Swallow the Sun, he collected the writings, poems and the lyrics of Aleah and wrote the music in one week with the writing being as instinctive as possible reflecting his state following the death of his beloved wife. What we get is the one last tribute to Aleah, to keep her spirit immortal through this album. Tomi Joutsen of Amorphis and Gas Lipstick ex-HIM join him on vocals and drums respectively with additional vocal contributions by Heike Langhans of Draconian fame and Aleah herself.

Aleah Starbridge

Mirrors starts off with a huge Candlemass riff which gets later overlaid by a sorrowful guitar trill, Tomi shows up with the words "Breathing in all my fears..."  and he sounds much different than from what we hear from him in Amorphis. His vocals sound desperate, over the top and is more of a black metal croak like Mortuus of the band Marduk and the same vocals traverse from low growls to melodic singing in the same song. From the onset it's clear this record sounds huge, Tomi brings his absolute best and he sounds convincing in his impassioned delivery. The song fades into the first of the three spoken word interludes in this album, all of them features Aleah's poems recited by her and all of them except Pieces have a windy, seashore atmosphere to subtly engulf the voice.

The most beautiful embodiment of the album's scope is the song My Mistake. I use the word beautiful not to lighten the song, it's just that the song is simply beautiful, even strangely uplifting. Heike Langhans guests in the song and she knows a thing or two about sorrow as a member of the Swedish band Draconian. She lends her angelic airy voice only to be offset by Tomi's growls. The song almost comes to a stop in a tranquil moment, with the whisper

   "This fortress made of ice

will break some day

from the waters we'll rise again"

and it then goes to the heaviest and the most emotional part of the album, one of the greatest light to dark transitions in heavy metal.

"When day turned into night

I lost my way

all the signs we so bright that

I went blind to one detail"

Severed Eyes will sound right at home on the album Damnation by Opeth, it features Tomi's singing voice throughout and is accompanied only by acoustic guitars. The song sits almost like I Nattens Timma on Shining's sixth album Född förlorare, a late album breather which sounds a lot like a sad lullaby.

It must have been really hard for Juha Raivio to use his deceased wifes recordings for the song Dreams Burn Down, the song features a vocal duet between Tomi and Aleah Starbridge. Aleah's part was supposed to be a Trees of Eternity song, the couple's side project and Raivio is not sure about the lyrics, even the language used. The song and the album ends with the lyrics displayed at the start of this post.

This album was a blind purchase for me, I remember purchasing this on its release day, having only heard one song beforehand, I knew this album would resonate with me and it still remains as the most unfeigned work of music I've heard. Tribute albums like this have been done before, Nightmare by Avenged Sevenfold and .5: The Gray Chapter by Slipknot comes to mind but none of them went to the extend of Juha Raivio. No Stars Upon The Bridge is work of a man's love for his deceased wife, his way of rekindling the flame, his way of telling the world how much he yearns for her.

LINKS FOR YOUR ENLIGHTMENT

Hallatar   Swallow the Sun   Amorphis   HIM   Draconian   Trees of Eternity

Candlemass   Opeth   Shining   

Avenged Sevenfold   Slipknot

Hallatar Interview