Trust Sigur Rós to continually make unusual, ethereal music. Their last four LP studio albums had been shunted to critical acclaim, making even the most cold-hearted critic gush with praise. Their symphonies conjure vast landscapes of ice, stunning mental imagery of isolated sceneries, rough-hewn volcanoes, lush mountains and evergreen fields. To prove that point, watch BBC’s stunning documentary PLANET EARTH, and you’ll hear Sigur Rós’s verve. Their music make you imagine yourself standing in the most remote places imaginable – solitary, ponderous and existential. It sweeps you with overflowing emotions you think music is lacking the power of.


With their fifth studio album, oddly titled and unpronounceable, Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust, literally translated as “With A Buzz In Our Ears We Play Endlessly” – the renowned Icelandic quartet has shrugged off the iciness of their former albums, and come up with something summery, breezy feel. That is, consistently, will also warm the iciest of hearts. In the album cover, art-photography by Ryan McGiles, four youths run stark naked across a road and onto the fields beyond under the vibrant blue sky. This alone explains the concept of the album: a celebration of youth, humanity, beauty and life. It suggests that Sigur Rós is making music without inhibitions, no pretense, no sham. Just them and their music, along with the world. This album lets your imagination run wild, into the forests, without visible clothing, no culture, no pressures, no inhibitions – just you and along with others, sprinting across a field in the brightest of the summers.


It opens with the band’s strangest conceived song to date, “Gobbledigook”, a drum-beat-ridden melody that feels like a tribal dance yet oddly pleasing. What follows is the fantastic “Inni Mer Syngur Vitleysingur”, comparable to a blast of morning sunshine in your window, uplifting and harmonic, and has one of the album’s best song climaxes. “Godan Daggin” is an acoustic beauty, and “Vid Spilum Endalaust” is like the musical equivalent of a comforting arm around your shoulder. A slow start with a touch of lonesomeness accompanies “Festival” and it builds up a crescendo of a brilliant sweeping end. “Sud I Eyrum” is a laid-back affair, much like the old Sigur Rós, but the album’s most captivating piece is “Ara Batur” (“Row Boat” in English). It is perhaps the album’s most gorgeous, most striking music chord – a sweeping song that starts with Jonsi singing with a piano and then pulling off a majestic atmosphere along with a choir and a full orchestra, a climax score that could put most movie music to utter shame. Recorded in Abbey Road, London, with Choir and London Symphony Orchestra (the one who made Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings score) – it is lonely, elegiac, exquisite and victorious. And another acoustic rendition “Illgresi”, and a piano-strung ballad “Flojtavik” follows, both fine gems of music, moving and heartbreaking. And for the first time in their career, Sigur Rós sings in the English language with “All Alright”, stroke with dreamlike propinquity and etched with honesty, as though Sigur Rós was right in front of you and singing with hearts out.


For the first time, they sound more like a band playing instruments in a room, than ethereal music and voices from the deep. It has edge and raw perfection, as this album was made in the space of three months, proving their finesse. They have already crossed language barriers, proving that English is not the official language of music. For them, music itself is still its own language, and even with incomprehensible words, you know what they’re singing about if you have imagination enough to consider – that words aren’t enough to express emotions, and music sometimes have the power to express what words cannot say.



VERDICT:

A work of pure musical artistry without inhibitions. Sigur Rós at its cheerful best that still warms the iciest of hearts. It is elegiac, haunting, victorious, and emotionally satisfying. The world’s most unparalleled band in terms of eccentricity solidifies their stamp on heartwarming music. It is also their most accessible, and perhaps one of their bests. Go to the park, plug this album to your ears, lie down on the grasses, feel the soft caress of wind, and look up to the brilliant blue, cloud-tinged sky – this album is that exquisite.



RATING: A+