Sigur Ros - Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust

 
On albums like Ágætis byrjun and ( ), Icelandic quartet Sigur Rós acquired a robust reputation for scribing sacred, seraphic soundscapes. Epitomising Victor Hugo’s famous quote that “music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent,” singles like the 10-minute opus “Svefn-g-englar”, the eight-minute epic “Ny Batteri” and the six-and-a-half minute "Untitled #1” (a.k.a "Vaka") were nothing less than grasps at the ineffable - euphonious attempts at communicating the nebulous contours of the human soul.

The band’s burgeoning fan-base and slew of rapturous reviews testifies to the popular success of these sonic epiphanies, though at the same time it has become gradually apparent that the price of being so authentically otherworldly is an excessive melodrama that has the potential to drown the very humanity the band were trying to define; not to mention a level of predictability in terms of their tendency to build from nothing to everything over the course of several minutes.

Recognising this dilemma, the band changed, uh, tack on 2005’s transitional Takk. Released through a major label (EMI), it featured more musical twists and turns than previous outings, replaced the band’s austere e-bow drones with a colourful array of instrumentation (drums, piano, horns, samples), and spawned singles like the eerie, guitar-drenched “Glósóli” and the hopelessly beautiful “Hoppípolla,” both of which not only weighed in at around the five-minute mark – a mere intro in former Sigur Rós terms – but showed a looser, more spirited side to the band.

This phase – from over-earnest Romantics to accessible pop impressionists – continues on Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust, which translated reveals the joy-invoking title: With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly. The album takes the ideas tentatively tried out on Takk, and builds them into a surprisingly varied set that manages to balance the profound and the weightless almost in equal measure. Almost.

Recorded outside their native Iceland (New York, London and Havana to be precise), and co-produced by legendary British producer Flood, Med Sud…wastes no time in presenting the band’s reinvigorated vision. The pseudo-flamenco stomp "Gobbledigook," the upbeat and – gasp! – catchy "Inni Mer Syngur Vitleysingur" ("Within Me a Lunatic Sings") and the pacey “Vid Spilum Endalaust” are all exultant songs, brimming with pounding drums, breezy strums and merry la-la-la’s. They belt along at the kind of frisky pace that fans of their more ponderous post-rock could never have anticipated.

Echoes of the old Sigur Rós wash back in soon enough on songs like “Godan Daginn,” a slow, graceful number that has singer Jón Birgisson’s vocals drift ethereally over a hazy backdrop of swirling drones, fairy-tale chimes, subdued drums and acoustic guitar. It's reminiscent of earlier material for sure, but it manages to sound magical as well as insouciant: a more slimline Sigur Rós, if you will.

Old habits die hard though, and Med Sud...features two highly wrought songs: the nine minute “Festival,” where Birgisson does his best choirboy impression (it's pretty good) over a chanting church organ for several minutes before letting his band surge forward with a monumental instrumental explosion; and “Ara Batur" ("Row Boat"), where Jonsi switches nimbly to the role of angel (which he also does well), unfurls his falsetto over a lonely piano, and slowly, ineluctably leads us into a euphoric denouement conjured up by a 90-person ensemble that includes the London Sinfonietta and the Oratory Boys Choir. If ever there was a line between displays of unguarded emotion and unfettered indulgence, this crosses it in a fairly definitive way.

Yet following these sonic extravagances, the record trails out with a series of stripped down beauties: the dreamy, piano-led “Med Sud I Eyrum” (“With Buzzing In Our Ears); the folksy and intimate “Illgresi”; the gentle “Fljotavik”; the sluggish “Straumnes,” and the fragile finale “All Alright,” which, for the record, features Jónsi singing in English for the first time.

These more Spartan songs prove beyond doubt what Sigur Rós had hoped: that they can still navigate the spiritual and the sublime without resorting to pomp and pageantry. On Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust they might not always scale the Nietzschean heights of yesteryear but they compensate by delivering us back to a world that’s human (not all too human!) yet all the better for it.