Artist: Sigur Rós
Label: EMI Records
Release: 2012
Length: 54:31
Rating: 4/5
Gray Icelandic ground, mirrored in an equally gray Icelandic sky. Not a soul in the vast wasteland. Abandoned houses and the odd little shrub falling apart. And yet the feeling is somehow blissful. Somewhere in the distance, a gentle wind stirs the wind chimes on the porch. There’s a radio sitting out there. A radio playing the soundtrack to the scene. A radio playing the new album from Iceland’s Sigur Rós – Valtari.
Sigur Rós are easily one of those modern alternative bands that need no introduction. The ethereal Icelandic post-rockers are back with a new album after four years of silence. Expectations were certainly high, because with every new record Sigur Rós have stepped into some new sonic territory, turned familiar sounds into an experiment, or found a way to reinterpret how a musical mood works on the listener’s emotions. That’s exactly why the questions about which direction Sigur Rós would take this time were that much louder.
If Sigur Rós still swore by mixing rock into their vast electronic ambient at the start of their career, those rock elements have been vanishing more and more over time, and yet, against all expectations, the band’s sonic landscape has only kept growing wider and wider. Valtari is something like the final stage of that evolution, since within a single creative formula it practically just stretches and narrows an electronic ambient dream, one that only Jónsi knows how to back up properly with his vocals. The most »characteristic« track – in terms of exploring new sound while holding on to some kind of post-rock ambient core – is the album’s third song, »Varúð«. Along with maybe the following »Rembihnútur«, it’s the only track with something resembling an actual rhythm in the classic sense of the word. That’s probably exactly why it’s one of the best songs on the album, if not the best.
Conjuring up fantastical, melancholy-soaked landscapes is still Sigur Rós’ forgé. Jónsi once again sings in a made-up language that’s almost, but not quite, like Icelandic. As such, it fits perfectly with the sonic picture, which on Valtari is stripped down to the bare essence of Sigur Rós. Minimal and minimalist sounds can hardly come across as full or capable of creating some kind of inner world and experience, and with it emotional impact, but without that ability Sigur Rós wouldn’t be Sigur Rós anymore. The band members have said more than once, during and after the recording, that it often looked like they’d never get there, especially at the beginning. That they toyed with totally unconnected, random samples, leaned on electronics like never before, and several times got up from the mixing desk and marched out of the studio, resolved to call the whole thing off. But at some point it supposedly just clicked, and the whole project gained meaning and a signature sound they could lean on and trust. That’s probably why Valtari is the way it is. Heavily electronic, ambient in every direction, with no rock elements. With a few classic instruments making music so minimalist that it’s hard to even look for the thread of a melody, let alone find anything like one.
The Icelanders’ new album Valtari isn’t about preserving the band’s unique musical style and its shifts from record to record. Instead, it plunges Sigur Rós into a thick haze of ambient formaldehyde. The album has shed every trace of rock and even classic post-rock, which isn’t bad per se, but this time around Sigur Rós work with the most basic elements of their trademark sound, with no extra search for new forms. The album maintains the band’s standing, but sadly doesn’t lift it higher, the way each of their new records did over the course of their career. The four-year wait did give us extra material to listen to, but we’ll more or less keep falling back on the earlier albums – just like we did for the last four years.
Line-up
Jónsi Birgission – vocals, guitars, keyboards
Kjartan Sveinsson – keyboards, piano, guitar
Georg Hólm – bass
Orri Páll Dýrason – drums
Production
Sigur Rós
Track list
1. Ég anda (6:15)
2. Ekki múkk (7:44)
3. Varúð (6:37)
4. Rembihnútur (5:05)
5. Dauðalogn (6:36)
6. Varðeldur (6:00)
7. Valtari (8:18)
8. Fjögur píanó (7:50)
