Hrafnablót have changed two members. The guitarist Mara Birna Jóhannsdóttir and the drummer Andri Pétur Dalmar have left, and Þorsteinn Steinberg Allansson and Kristinn Bergsson have taken their places. The band thanked both and said the new line up is now preparing to play the album live.
The album is three weeks old. Guðlaugar Saga came out on 11 September and is the first full length from a band that only formed in late 2024, which makes two departures this early either a correction or the ordinary turbulence of a group assembled quickly.
What they made is a concept record, and the concept is worth stating plainly. Guðlaug is a woman of the present day who is thrown back to Iceland's settlement age with her clothes and a taser. Nine tracks, seven of them songs plus an intro and a spoken word interlude, take her through prophecy, ritual, a kidnapping, homesickness and a decision about whether to stay.
The band call what they play sorcerous folk metal, which is their own term, and build it out of heavy riffs, folk instrumentation, clean and harsh vocals and Icelandic folklore. "We knew right away we wanted to create a strong and cohesive narrative and to feature the stark contrasts present in Icelandic folklore and sagas," they said of the writing.