Sigur Rós - If Emotion Had a Sound

It's a widespread opinion that the current way of consuming music no longer allows for the development of that collective, shared dimension of the musical phenomenon which, for decades, underpinned the perception of the various eras of "rock". Although this opinion is backed by numerous objective findings, it is not immune to a few but significant exceptions that, even in these disorienting 2000s, have managed to capture the attention of a broad swath of the public through nothing more than the quality and communicative power of their artistic output.

Whatever one thinks of their musical expression, Sigur Rós undoubtedly represent one of these exceptions (alongside, perhaps, only Radiohead): a band capable of turning their underground origins from the fascinating yet peripheral Iceland into fame and success on a global scale, a land to which they will always show a strong sense of belonging, finding refuge there and elevating it to the main source of inspiration for their music.

All the elements for wrapping the band's story in a mythological aura would be there, from their geographical origins to their surprising artistic iter, right down to the (anti-)character persona of Jón Þór (Jónsi) Birgisson, an author of unique sensitivity and a singer with a truly distinctive voice. But Sigur Rós can easily do without all that, because alongside these factors, which are partly external to the musical context, there are many others far more significant, constituting the starting point of the story of a band born, like so many others, in the bustling Icelandic underground of the mid-90s, and which gained ever-growing attention for the naturalness with which it managed to combine ethereal, dreamlike atmospheres with occasionally impetuous surges, all charged with powerful emotional impact.

Over the years, it has been precisely their extraordinary ability to create "moving" music that has represented the main defining trait of Sigur Rós, beyond any technical consideration or any definition of "genre", and even beyond the most immediate communicative aspects. Indeed, the instinctive, emotional effect of their music proves all the more powerful the more impenetrable their lyrics are, sung in Icelandic or, alternatively, in vonlenska (or hopelandic), a wholly invented language, in the manner of the Cocteau Twins, whose phonemes manage to communicate beyond the meaning of words, thanks to Jónsi's deeply felt and highly expressive delivery.

The story of Sigur Rós begins in 1994, on the very day Birgisson's niece was born, named Sigurrós (a fairly common female name in Iceland, meaning "victory rose"). Initially the band is a trio, made up of Birgisson plus bassist Georg Hólm and drummer Ágúst Ævar Gunnarsson.

Their first single, "Fljúgðu", is quickly noticed by their most illustrious compatriot, Björk, who decides to include it on a compilation she curated to celebrate fifty years of Icelandic independence from Denmark.

Despite such a "godmother", the band's early path is anything but swift, and indeed remains confined to Iceland alone.

It takes over three years before their debut album, symbolically titled Von ("hope"), is released on the leading national label, Smekkleysa. It's still a fledgling work, in which the band's artistic personality is only partly outlined, flanked as it is by fairly explicit nods to ideas and references drawn from a musical background that is still merely a prelude to the creation of a simply unique sound, whose vital seeds, however, are already being sown on Von.

Von nonetheless already makes clear the young Icelanders' fascination with subtly psychedelic atmospheres, somewhere between Floydian interstellar drift and a muffled, unsettling post-industrial ambient, which wraps the almost ten minutes of the opening "Sigur Rós" and the following "Dögun" in a dark, floating haze, where Jónsi's first timid vocalisations begin to emerge. After this murky opening, the tracks take on more defined structures, through crisp rhythms and a more distinctly "rock" sensibility, translated into dense, explicit guitars that echo garage and shoegaze sounds on the hymn to mother earth "Hún Jörð", and above all on the fluid, gripping "Myrkur", an oxymoronically sunny track (its title means "darkness"), which flows into a quick melodic mantra that grows, coiling itself into shimmering sonic spirals, almost evoking Slowdive.

But it's in the second half of Von that some of the traits highlighted above begin to blend into that unique, moving form that will become Sigur Rós's recognizable "trademark". Between the stylistic uncertainties of "Veröld Ný Og Óð" and the hazy interlude "Mistur", this part of the album offers three previews of the band's future path, exemplified by the assertive drumming and soft melodies of the title track — the album's first true "song" — and by the intricate compositions of the vivid, imaginative "Syndir Guðs" and "Hafssól". These tracks bring to the surface feelings crystallized by time, slowly unspooled through suspended melodies that reveal the hallmarks of the band's future sound and its ability to build a soft tension, later released in a kaleidoscope of emotions — here still only partly expressed — through expansive, dreamlike, mysterious, gently stormy modes endowed with a truly unique descriptive power, as shown by the images of the rainbow and the timid rays of sunlight through the clouds mentioned in the sparse lyrics of "Hafssól", which alone exemplify an entire musical poetics.

Von achieves rather modest commercial success, but critical acclaim begins to spread the name Sigur Rós around the Icelandic music scene and beyond, particularly in England. The first tangible results of the growing interest in the band come with the remix album Von Brigði (1998), which contains reworkings of tracks from Von made exclusively by Icelandic artists, among them Gus Gus and Múm, as well as a self-remix of "Leit Af Lífi", a track originally intended for the debut album but left off for mixing-related time constraints. The second fruit of the band's growing reputation is a record deal with Fat Cat and PIAS (signed after turning down more than one offer from American majors), which sets the stage for Sigur Rós's definitive takeoff from Iceland to the continent and soon to the rest of the world.

The band's first major step outside Iceland is Ágætis Byrjun, whose title, chosen by chance but emblematic nonetheless, means "a good start". And it really is a (new) start for Sigur Rós, since, compared to the previous record, Ágætis Byrjun sees the band's definitive line-up settle for the first time, with the arrival of a new drummer, Orri Páll Dýrason, and the invaluable addition of multi-instrumentalist Kjartan Sveinsson (guitar, piano, keyboards, flute).

Partly due to these line-up changes, the album's genesis was rather difficult, taking more than two years between the initial writing stage, the sound development and, finally, the recording of the tracks.

The album comes out in Iceland in 1999, but only in August of the following year in England and the rest of Europe, and it immediately makes clear that its long gestation period was put to the best possible use, since the result is, simply and with immense naturalness, the definition of a unique style, here fully expressed in multiple facets, each of which makes tangible an unprecedented sound that upends categorizations and overly cerebral attempts at reconstruction, in favor of a highly distinctive, moving approach entirely focused on expressing and stirring deep emotions.

Ágætis Byrjun is an exceptionally varied and multifaceted work, in constant balance between sweetness and fury, between lightness and gloom, all traced back to the common denominator of music born from the meeting of an electric "rock" framework with an orchestral breath, both marked by Jónsi's vibrant vocals, disorienting in their elfin tone, now ethereal, now piercing, but always incredibly expressive.

After a brief "Intro" (which is nothing more than a section of the title track played backwards), it's Jónsi's repeated vocalisations that lend alien qualities to "Svefn-G-Englar", a ten-minute mutant track that, amid vertically twisting guitars and celestial melodies, ushers in dreamlike, anguished atmospheres full of tension and involvement.

These distinctive traits can be loosely compared to those of the most emotionally charged post-rock, into whose indistinct cauldron Sigur Rós's music has often been lumped. However, both the premises and the sensibility shown here by the Icelandic band turn out to be different and wholly peculiar, since, while it's true that the dreamy crescendo of "Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása" and its eruption into pronounced guitar sound bear traits of so-called "orchestral post-rock", the elements and compositional sensibility are quite different, aimed instead at the airy, never cloying romanticism that characterizes the arrangements of almost every track.

Between compositional rigor and fresh playfulness, electronic counterpoints and anguished tones, the album traces a constant ambivalence between enveloping harmonic sensations and lyrics steeped in strong emotional pathos, dotted with airy arrangements and unpredictable rhythmic ripples that, on more than one occasion ("Ný Batterí", "Hjartað Hamast"), take the shape of a sinuous pitching motion, an overt nod to northern moods and icy swells, now soothing, now frightening.

The strong geographic imprint of its origin, perceptible in the sound of much of the album and also expressed through the proud use of the Icelandic language for all the lyrics, adds further fascinating inscrutability to a work already dense with suggestions arising from its highly distinctive stylistic hybridization, the result of an unprecedented mélange of ethereal romanticism, orchestral grandeur, psych undercurrents, and loosely post-rock ideas.

Rightly, Ágætis Byrjun serves as the launching pad for Sigur Rós on a global scale, and not only for its outstanding quality and its reach, still fairly limited at the time, but above all for the attention it drew across numerous, widely different artistic circles. It's no coincidence, in fact, that two prominent yet artistically distant bands, namely Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Radiohead, chose them as support acts for their live events, the former for a concert at the Royal Festival Hall and the latter for numerous dates on the tour following "Kid A".

Between touring activity and work on the follow-up album, the 2000-2001 period is also marked by two parallel releases that see Sigur Rós take on two unusual collaborations, which partly depart from the path traced so far, testifying to an extremely broad musical curiosity.

The first is their contribution to the soundtrack of the film Englar Alheimsins ("Angels Of The Universe"), in which, alongside fifteen "modern classical" orchestral fragments by composer Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, there is room for two Sigur Rós tracks that could almost be considered outtakes from Ágætis Byrjun, since they recall that album's style and emotional involvement, suspended as they are between the melodies of "Bíum Bíum Bambaló" (a reworking of an old Icelandic lullaby) and incisive electric surges that, on "Dánarfregnir Og Jarðarfarir", reach extreme levels of force and drama.

Meanwhile, the band once again turns its gaze to the traditions of its homeland, following a meeting with the singer and poet Steindór Andersen, the leading living exponent of the Icelandic epic poetic form known as Rímur, the same title given to an EP pressed in just a thousand copies and comprising six tracks, on three of which the band accompanies Andersen, giving rise — especially on the track "Fjöll Í Austri Fagurblá" — to a splendid example of syncretism between the poet's baritone chant and Sigur Rós's music, a modern, measured backdrop to a solemn declamation steeped in ancestral tones.

2002 then brings the hugely anticipated follow-up to Ágætis Byrjun, for which the band makes a choice that is anything but commercially strategic, releasing an album in which absolutely everything is left to the music and the feelings it evokes, with no superstructure whatsoever, starting with the colorless artwork, the absence of titles and liner notes, and even the means of linguistic communication itself. On the album, commonly referred to as ( ), Jónsi in fact sings entirely in vonlenska, through improvised, meaningless vocalizations, using his voice as a further musical instrument.

This reduction to a semantic ground zero is also evidenced by the fact that the eight long tracks on ( ), released with no identifying title, actually lost theirs during the album's recording sessions, during which Sigur Rós worked by subtraction rather than addition, in search of a minimalism of means that stands in diametrical opposition to the minimalism of communicative substance — which instead flows copiously, freed from any predefined scheme.

Equally spare, yet extraordinarily rich, is the musical profile of ( ), which pares down to the bare essentials the orchestral arrangements and electronic experiments of the first two albums — here present only in the form of a few timid field recordings — in favor of an approach of intimate, shadowy delicacy, rendered in notes unspooled with slow grace and punctuated by Jónsi's vocalizations, constant yet never saccharine in their pained sweetness.

Three quarters of the album flow uniformly, through enchanted atmospheres initially marked by pronounced lyricism and accessible melodies, though these are often diluted into rarefied, slow-motion textures ("Untitled #2" and "Untitled #4") or transformed into full-fledged chamber symphonies ("Untitled #3", a track driven by a piano figure of wondrous simplicity).

The compositions, seemingly uniform but in truth remarkably complex, once again transcend any possible stylistic framework, turning the subtle psychedelia of hazy sounds and the indolent yet inexorable advance of catatonic rhythms into a fragile, heartfelt intimacy — an indispensable vehicle for an emotional rapture that, like the songs themselves, goes well beyond words, to the point of being able to do entirely without them.

The fascinating misty sounds that characterize ( ), which on a superficial listen might even seem difficult to penetrate, gradually thin out, unveiling a treasure chest of sensations outside of space and time, until they take on tangible, concrete form in the two closing tracks ("Untitled #7" and "Untitled #8") which, besides being the longest on the album (both over ten minutes), are also the ones in which the emotional impact of the electric crescendos, in the style of those on Ágætis Byrjun, is carried forward and indeed pushed to extreme consequences, generating explosions of vibrant, desperate force — further proof of the tormented sensibility that runs beneath the surface of Sigur Rós's music, like magma beneath an icy crust.

A kind of flip side to the album that preceded it, ( ) shows the band's more delicate and entropic face, delivering a message no less fascinating nor less important for the definition of an artistic identity that here becomes settled, perpetuating the traits of the earlier works while accentuating their more delicate and personal shades, achieving a different result that nonetheless deserves, at the very least, equal standing with Ágætis Byrjun.

The record also marks the beginning of an important collaboration — the lasting partnership binding Sigur Rós to the all-female string quartet Amiina, from here on an irreplaceable live support act, but also an integral part of the enchanted sonic richness of their studio work.

It is the success enjoyed by the album and the subsequent world tour that definitively launches the band on the record market, turning them into a phenomenon known and loved on a truly global scale.

So, after the interlude of the soundtrack for the documentary Hlemmur (nineteen short electronic-based instrumental tracks, some of which are variations on the same theme), signing that major-label deal they had previously proudly turned down becomes almost inevitable. Fortunately, however, it turns out to be an altogether painless step, chosen and planned in keeping with the sensibility of the four Icelandic musicians.

Defying the fears and clichés associated with this kind of transition, in 2005 Birgisson and his bandmates mark their return with Takk…: eleven tracks, this time all bearing a title as well as Icelandic lyrics. Though these are purely formal elements, the mere presence of actual titles and lyrics already seems to point to a greater outward-looking attitude in the band's compositional approach, later confirmed on listening to Takk… (which means "thank you" in Icelandic), from which emerges a lighter mood compared to the aching melancholy of ( ), perfectly exemplified by "Glósóli" — the first single and an ideal archetype of the Icelandic band's sonic and existential philosophy — with its story of a child who, waking up in the dark, fears the sun has been stolen, and so sets off in search of it, only to find it right where it had always been. All of this unfolds in an extremely delicate emotional kaleidoscope that runs from Birgisson's subdued, intimate vocals in the first half of the track to the guitar apotheosis of the second, before a brief return to stillness in the song's final seconds. "Sæglópur" follows a similar arc, opening with nothing but piano and bells before building into a majestic crescendo that feels like a cathartic invocation.

Alongside the renewed expressive power of these tracks, however, there is also a trio of slow, hazy pieces: the cinematic "Sé Lest" (which culminates in a vaguely folk-tinged finale), the lyrical, ethereal "Andvari", and "Heysátan", a sweet, shadowy lullaby — a fitting moment of calm after so many overwhelming emotional storms, born of psychedelic fascinations and imperceptible movements.

Elsewhere, Sigur Rós seem to harken back to the style of their early work: that's the case with "Gong", the most direct track on the album, marked as it is by a distinct wave rhythmic imprint and built around a swirling mantra of vocalizations. The sweetness and gentle vocals of "Hoppípolla", wavering between the simplicity of a nursery rhyme and airy orchestral openings, as well as the graceful choir of its brief coda "Með Blóðnasir", are in fact wrapped in a lyrical apparatus similar to certain passages of Ágætis Byrjun.

Certainly less surprising than their previous work, Takk… distills its traits into a perfect form, to the point that it could be considered a sort of summa of the musical expression the band had developed up to that point.

Two years after Takk…, Sigur Rós returned with a double CD, Hvarf/Heim, which, alongside a couple of new tracks, makes ample room for reworkings of songs from across their discography, more or less recent.

This is not, however, a purely commercial exercise meant to keep the public's interest in the Icelandic band alive in the absence of a proper album, since Sigur Rós tackle the reworking of already-released songs with striking naturalness, adding to them the old demo "Salka" and two new tracks, "Hljómalind" and "Í Gær". Of the two CDs that make up Hvarf/Heim, the first perpetuates the magic of Sigur Rós's music within their usual electric habitus, rendered mostly fluid and rounded, but not without guitar surges, such as the unusually psych-prog flavored ones in "Í Gær".

The second CD, "Heim", instead contains six previously released tracks, recast in a fully unplugged form, in which the orchestral components of the band's sound shine through and the fundamental contribution of Amiina is brought to the fore, particularly in the profound reworkings of tracks such as "Ágætis Byrjun" and "Staralfur", which reveal a new, gentle sunniness, proving that voice, strings and a limited set of acoustic instruments are enough to once again achieve a result that's absolutely spine-tingling.

Despite the substantial absence of stylistic evolution, Hvarf/Heim represents something more than a mere collection for fans: indeed, both the "classically" electric tracks and the lush acoustic reinterpretations clearly reveal the extraordinary expressive power of a unique band, settled into the maturity of a sound that allows for few variations but nonetheless manages every time to hit the mark, skillfully striking the right chords of the soul.

Alongside the double CD, the documentary film Heima was also released, a record of a series of concerts held in a range of highly distinctive Icelandic settings, reminding us that, even in the age of the internet and global access, music is made by people. That it's the expression of a culture, a people, a land. Of a heima, precisely, a term evidently close to the German heimat. Homeland, we might say. Home.

That's why, then, Sigur Rós, kids catapulted from the basements of their own homes to stages scorched by spotlights, didn't just fall from the sky. They are, rather, the brass band marching through a village of twenty souls. The child climbing a pile of shoes, and the girl having lunch barefoot. They are, above all, the silence and the light of that earthly masterpiece that is Iceland. That light which, even in their songs, never gives way to the grayness of shadow, not even in the tensest moments, like "Untitled # 8". At most it becomes a play of violent, dazzling refractions. Splendid ones.

We should be grateful for the opportunity afforded by Heima. For being able to see this music given back to the places that gave birth to it, to the home it belongs to. "Untitled # 1", played in an ocean of stillness, is a blessing. As is "Staralflur", brought back into the intimacy of four walls. Or "Untitled # 3" again, placed at the close, warmed by a row of candles.

The Icelandic band's fifth proper album, Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust, the fruit of their collaboration with producer Flood, begins exploring new paths, through artistic ideas that are quite different from one another. The new elements, however, seem to outnumber the legacy of "conservation", as shown by the very structure of the album, which can broadly be divided into three parts, two of which present Jónsi Birgisson and company in more or less new sonic guises, while one tends to perpetuate the same qualities of charm and emotional involvement typical of their earlier work.

The first part is strikingly disorienting, and immediately shows Sigur Rós from an almost entirely unprecedented perspective, cloaking their soft, ethereal melodies in an unusual sunniness and a pop vein never so pronounced before.

The opening "Gobbledigook" comes with insistent drumming and ritualistic accents, once again underlining the band's connection to Icelandic ancestry, in support of a psychedelic folk-pop, rounded off by crooked choirs and a sunny, infectious melody. Here Sigur Rós unveil a new and colorful world, where the songs take on defined shapes and even Jónsi's vocals gain a decisiveness and directness unknown until now. This first segment of the record settles into playful, driving tones, sublimated by "Við Spilum Endalaust", a popsong that would make Coldplay envious, yet still marked by Sigur Rós's trademark in its progressive harmonic openings and the magnificent outcome of a finale made entirely of strings and vocalizations.

The middle part of the album, on the other hand, returns to the band's more classic register, with stretched-out tempos and the usual ethereal vocals, sweetly dripped over an enveloping carpet of strings, whose inexorable and somewhat predictable crescendo anticipates, in "Festival", the bursting-in of drums and choirs and the only impetuous electric finale found on this record. Along the same line of continuity, but in a very different way, sits the parallel "Ára Bátur", a calm and touching track, its subtle melancholy running over Kjartan Sveinsson's measured, moving piano before flowing into a romantic elegy, lifted to the heavens by the anthemic solemnity of the strings.

It's the prelude to the third segment of the record, the most intimate and close-knit one, in which Jónsi rises to become the absolute protagonist, proving with nothing more than voice, acoustic guitar and piano that the incredible communicative power undeniably attributed to Sigur Rós can do without even the band's sweeping electric surges and still achieve an equally "emotional" effect.

The record's three-part structure, so evident that it was surely devised on purpose, clearly mirrors the transformation underway, between past, acoustic present and a conceivable future pop dimension. Equally calculated from a compositional standpoint, Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust nonetheless manages to balance the prevailing smoothness of the tracks with the instinct and customary interpretive force that, even in what might be deemed a classic transitional album, delivers at least one track to love and remember for every third of the record — shining examples of versatility and yet another (unnecessary!) demonstration that the unrepeatable magic created by Sigur Rós doesn't lie only in the bowed guitar and their remarkable emotional surges, but in something far deeper, tied to approach and sensibility, something ungraspable by formal measures alone, once detached from the indispensable element of perception.

What seemed like the beginning of a creative turning point instead proves to be the prelude to an "undefined hiatus", interrupted only by Jónsi's solo outings and by the live album Inni, which adds nothing to the earlier collection Hvarf/Heim. After that, almost suddenly, comes Valtari, a homogeneous fifty-four-minute flow that leaves the impression that, in order to escape their creative impasse, the band chose to take refuge in the safe harbour of their usual dilated, dreamlike sound — or rather, found themselves once again in the studio after switching on the autopilot responsible for finishing off the compositions most congenial to them.

In Valtari we find all the ingredients of the most ethereal and dreamlike Sigur Rós: the impalpable vocal harmonies and the atmospheres of enveloping haze that thin out to make room for emotional gusts. Everything therefore seems to be in its proper place — at times even too much so — diluted as it is in a broth of faint pastel colours, at most streaked through the use of polychrome tiles laid over piano and vibraphone notes, or accompanied by wordless choirs and Jónsi's unmistakable gurgles, which on this occasion appear more withdrawn into themselves and generally confined to the role of mere accompaniment to the soundscapes. The cohesiveness of the work, however, ends up lacking real sparks, which can initially be found in the anthemic "Varuð" and in the poetic orchestral invocation of "Dauðalogn", giving the impression that the immediacy of its execution corresponds to a deliberate choice in favour of a soundtrack-like descriptiveness, more heavily filtered through electronics, which at times disperses the more emotional suggestions that have always characterised the Icelandic band.

Unexpected. With Kveikur ("wick"), exactly one year after Valtari, Sigur Rós leave their fans dumbfounded, and everything perhaps becomes clearer. On one hand the departure of longtime keyboardist Kjartan, on the other a kind of hope projected towards a new beginning. As if it were a story repeating itself, the trio rekindles a flame that seemed destined to burn out, releasing an album that smells of urgency, perhaps as only () once did. Kveikur presents itself, right from "Brennestein", as the Icelanders' "rock" album. Although, listening closely, any label would only partially capture the turn taken by Sigur Rós. 

And they do so by unleashing all the grit that in Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust (their freak album?) had been suffocated, just as it was in their ambient record Valtari. Glucose, sugar, is dosed now like never before, according to new methods. The guitars, the reverbs, the climaxes, become the structure and load-bearing columns: sweeping walls of sound, never banal. And electronics, the rhythmic element, the drums trampling vigorously over everything in their path.

The opening "Brennestein" sets out the coordinates of this new direction. You can recognise in it the ferocity of "Untitled #8", except that everything here veers towards a markedly electronic territory. All that sweetness, their trademark, is here reshaped along entirely new lines and, no small feat, without ever becoming cloying. "Isjaki", for instance, revives the scenarios of "Hoppipolla", but with that extra quid that makes it a purest, most spontaneous gem.

In Jónsi's vocalisations, in splendid form, and in the barely hinted-at surges of "Yfirbord", in the ever-present music-box chimes of "Stormur" that ignite into a sweet instrumental finale, in the spreading melancholy of "Hrafntinna", all the hallmarks of this new direction can be recognised. And when they pick up the pace, they can really hurt. "Rafstaumur", in its aggressive climax, flares up impetuously. In the anthem of the title track "Kveikur", the cubed escalations of that compositional ferocity chase one another. Fire burning, geyser spray rising towards the sky, in a game where the post-rock tangent almost touches doom. The distant echoes and the piano of "Var" put out that raging flame, soothing it like the calm after the storm.

A meeting between the pop purity of Takk and (), Kveikur is Sigur Rós's new path towards a form of electric post-rock that meets pop. They don't betray their fans, but project themselves into a dimension that is, if anything, even more modern and universal. One shouldn't read this as a will to open up, but rather as a willingness to question themselves. Even though at certain points one gets the sense that they're running on autopilot, the gamble pays off even in those few lacklustre moments. In their own way they become young and punk again, recovering a freshness of purpose that seemed to have been somewhat lost. They play the ace no one expected them to have, winning the game in the least predictable and most difficult way. Surprising everyone.

A full ten years pass before the surprise arrival of Átta, which "simply" means eight. Ten tracks too, just like the years of waiting, for what the band calls "the most intimate and emotionally direct record made to date". Weighty words, of course, in the context of launching a work that aspires to stand as an all-encompassing expression of deep unease towards the contemporary world and a Western world ever more curled in on itself, amid grinding wars and endless crises.

Also significant is the return of multi-instrumentalist Kjartan Sveinsson after his "departure" in 2012, who thus reunites with frontman Jónsi and bassist Georg Holm. According to the former, the intent was "to have only minimal drums", so that "the music would be truly sparse, floating and beautiful". He goes on: "We're getting older and more cynical, so I just wanted us to be moved, so we'd feel something!". Sveinsson agrees with these statements: "We wanted to allow ourselves to be a bit dramatic and go far with these arrangements. The world needs that right now. It's hard to describe, but for me everything is always open to interpretation. People can think and feel however they want". Átta consequently starts afresh from a shell that had somehow cracked, showing from the opening "Glóð" onwards a genuine harmony, an enchanting cohesion that in places on the album even reaches heavenly heights. Indeed, we witness the success of an orchestral breath that aims for perpetual suspension, for ascent as an act only partly divine and, in fact, human, necessary in a ruinous social context in which, again according to the Icelandic band — specifically Hólm — music has the duty, and above all the power, to unite, in contrast to, for example, the countless ethical issues that have mercilessly divided people in recent times: "It's what the music was asking for and saying on its own". The first single released, "Blóðberg", shared through online sessions and Instagram posts from the group paying homage to their older albums, evokes a return to mother earth, through fairly self-explanatory lines, "Kominn heim / Fyrir frið og ró /" ("Come home / For peace and quiet"). While the sound, extremely ethereal in the typical Sigur Rós manner, tends towards minimalism, almost a floating ambient movement. Everything lifts off the ground only in the second part, with distant vocals creating nebulae and thin waves. The images of the video, directed by Johan Renck, convey a deeper meaning: a drone flies over what looks like a Martian desert, before corpses scattered beneath the shadows of withered trees appear like fallen leaves, coming to rest on the edge of an equally barren ravine. It's a vision that matches the mood of the trio Hólm, Jónsi, Sveinsson. And one that ends up clashing with the music at the centre of the dish. The following "Skel", for example, expands the underlying conflicting feeling in a positive direction, through a magical swaying motion that brings back the best of Sigur Rós. The strings further widen a shining range of action in "Klettur", where a timid rhythm section even appears, like a heartbeat.

The heart of the record, namely "Mór", is its moment most laden with peace and solitude, thanks to a majestic prayer. It's as if the three of them had decided to set to music the embrace between the miracle of life and the decay of death. "Andrá" goes further still, surpassing the stratosphere, the sun and the stars of the cosmos as in the days of Ágætis byrjun. "Fall" is further proof of this, the least "dense" track, with the piano bearing the pathos of a fleeting emotion. The closing suite, in fact the title track, "8", is split into two parts: a final ascent at the start, followed by sheer fade-out (here we go again) in ambient mode.

Recorded across several continents, between the Sundlaugin recording studio, the legendary Abbey Road Studios and various studios in the United States, Átta delivers the return, as unhoped-for as it is well-achieved, of an unmistakably epochal band.

Contribution by Filippo Rizzi ("Heima"), Alberto Asquini ("Kveikur"), Giuliano Delli Paoli (Átta)

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