A lot has changed over the year since Sigur Rós' comeback album Valtari and their latest offering Kveikur. You can put it down the band losing keyboardist Kjartan Sviensson, maybe Valtari's mixed to positive reception with main criticisms being the sense of over-familarity or maybe, just maybe, after over fifteen years since Von, it's time for a change.
Change that sees a Iceland's most famous musical export...after Björk, produce it's most radically different, yet traditional album yet.
It starts with a thunderous bang with lead single and the appropriately titled Brennisteinn (or roughly translated to Brimstone). Played to the backing track of sample scratches, it leads with a loud and simple beat and bass, the wails of the e-bow intercut and Jonsi's vocals ranging from speaking to his signature falsetto for the latter half.
At over seven minutes; it's the album's longest track, yet there aren't too many songs on the album in the same vein. The closest being the title track, by far the rockiest song ever released by the band with an explosive chorus of crashing noise (led again with e-bow) and Jonsi's falsetto, it's flies by at blistering pace and, again, never loses momentum.
Now; you might be mistaken into thinking the album is just a straight up rock album but, much of the album is straight forward easy-on-the-ears pop songs in a similar style to Takk...'s offerings. Second single Ísjaki sounds eerily similar to Hoppípolla, but has more electronic sampling and moves at a faster pace.
Rafstraumur in the meanwhile leads with a simple beat but utilises Jonsi's falsetto, repetitive guitar and a stripped-back bridge for a song that sounds bizarrely like X&Y era Coldplay, yet it works well together in the context of the album, a welcome break from Kveikur before.
Different still is the slow, brooding Hrafntinna. Built up with backing trumpets and the gentle beat of symbols as the song quickly reaches it's first chorus to the background of beautiful orchestration, yet still maintaining it's stripped back quality throughout.
The album continues going back and forth, occasionally dipping into murky territory with The xx inspired Yfirborð, the latter half of the song littered with backmasking and distortions, it shouldn't work as well as it does yet it sticks out as the closest the band comes to a more natural evolution from Valtari, instead of the unexpected change that Kveikur provides.
The only flaw is the album conclusion, not ending on a bang, but a whimper with Var. A simple piano pieces with backing soundscapes, no vocals nor beat, it's not really the conclusion the album deserved and sounds more like a work-in-progress than a fully realised idea.
The first time I listened to the album in full, it left me thinking back, to the many times I find myself looking forward to an album, whether it being an established artist or band I like or liking the lead singles, but usually, something goes wrong and the supporting album just doesn't cut it. Sure, the singles still sound fantastic, but the whole package can sometimes taint them, as they now belong to a flawed album.
Despite the preludes going into Kveikur, I never imagined Sigur Rós could deliver something quite like this, let alone a year after the more traditional Valtari. As mentioned last year, although each album sounds different, the core principles are the same. You can joke and wonder how many tracks the BBC will use in their nature or sports documentaries, but that's been the nature of the albums since Hoppípolla became the go-to song for "epic".
But with Kveikur; the band takes, not a simple step-foward; but a hop, skip and jump, taking note of the albums everyone seems to love (Ágætis Byrjun, ( ) and Takk... although your mileage may vary) into a delicious blend of calm, melodramatics and hysteria that will captivate and entrap you from the first note and an album that you'll find yourself listening to again and again, just to try and take it all in.
9/10
H
@Retcon_Nation
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