Svart Records freut sich das neue signing von HALLATAR bekannt geben zu dürfen. Die erste Veröffentlichung stellt das Debütalbum „No Stars Upon The Bridge“ welches auf den Texten und Gedichten von Aleah Starbridge basiert und im Herbst erscheinen soll.
Es ist zwar ein brandneuer Bandname aber die Mitglieder sind dafür umso bekannter – Swallow The Sun und Trees Of Eternity Gitarrist Juha Raivio, Amorphis vocalist Tomi Joutsen und der ehemalige HIM Schlagzeuger Gas Lipstick biden Hallatar. Man könnte die Band auch als eine Erweiterung von Trees Of Eternity sehen, deren gefeiertes Svart Debüt „Hour Of The Nightingale“ welches ein Ehrenmahl an die Sängerin Alea Starbridge darstellt.
Juha Raivio erklärt den Ursprung von Hallatar wie folgt:“After the death of my beloved and my life partner Aleah Starbridge last April, I have been gathering writings, lyrics, and the poems of Aleah to keep them safe and close to my heart. About one month after the world came down on the blackest day of my life on April 18th, I knew I needed to pick up the guitar and try to create something or I would be truly destroyed. And something did arrive out of the darkness, and I wrote the music for the Hallatar album in a week’s time. I don’t have much memory of this week, not a memory of a single day of writing the music. But all I remember when going into this abyss of the writing process was a promise to myself that whatever music would come out, I would not touch or change anything of it afterwards. What mattered was that the music would stay forever as an absolute truth of those moments as they came out. I asked my good friends – and amazing musicians – Tomi Joutsen and Gas Lipstick if they would want to record this music with me, and both of them said yes without even hearing a note of it. I am forever grateful to both of them for sharing this road with me; even the weight of the process has not been easy to carry, or will be.“