CD - Sigur Rós: MED SUD I EYRUM VID SPILUM ENDALAUST

To instantly clear up a couple of nagging mysteries: Sigur Rós is Icelandic for ‘Victory Rose’, and the title of their fifth full-length album translates as ‘With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly’. Not that deciphering a little Icelandic will help you understand Sigur Rós.
 
In fact, the best part about Sigur Rós has always been that – despite singing in a language no one outside Björk can understand – their music conveys so much that it manages to be profound even when the words sound made-up. Though the ‘Rós do have a tendency to wallow around in their own greatness a little too long (2002’s frustratingly protracted (), I’m looking you directly between the brackets), there is no denying that they possess the power to produce music that is at once deeply personal and yet joyously transcendent – when their crescendos finally do pay off, you’d be excused if you need to sit out drooling for a moment while your nurse pokes around for the brain medicine.  
 
 
Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust begins with a playful, Animal Collective-esque ditty that sets the mood for the bulk of the album. Titled ‘Gobbledegook’, the opener is punctuated with mischievous la-la-laing backing voices and pounding drums, woven about frontman Jon Thor Birgisson’s weird, pixie (small p)-like singing. It is a confident track, and one that is instantly recognisable as the product of a group in full control of what they do. Sigur Rós have always been in danger of letting their songs get away with themselves, and the self-assurance expressed in this first track is infinitely reassuring.
 
The following track, ‘Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur’, locks this focussed sound in even more, after a canned television theme song introduction kicking in with a powerful beat. By the time you reach ‘Góðan Daginn’, the albums’ first quiet moment, there are no longer any doubts that Sigur Rós have honed their sound down to the knuckled essence of what it needs to be. Even excursions into crescendo-building that made () so trying are handled well here – particularly the 9-odd minute ‘Festival’, which climaxes in a triumphant, gloriously crashing finale at the 7-and-a-half minute mark.
 
Elsewhere in the album, ‘Íllgresi’ is as close as the group will ever get to a straight-out ballad, and the instrumental, ambient ‘Straumnes’ provides a bit of breathing room before the closing track, ‘All Alright’ – itself a quite lovely lullaby with echoes of the gorgeous ‘Avalon’ that capped off Ágætis Byrjun (1999). With Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust, Sigur Rós have managed to really consolidate what makes them great while still remaining definitely Rós – and all the while remain still just as incomprehensible as they’ve ever been.

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