Sigur Ros Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
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Everything is relative when you’re talking about epic Icelandic space-rock, but something very strange happens in the 49th minute of Sigur Ros’s fifth studio album. After nearly a decade of communicating his joy and anguish in a customized tongue that may as well have been Neptunian, singer Jonsi Birgisson suddenly reveals that he is indeed one of us—not just human, but a speaker of the English language.
“I wanted to know what I had to know,” he sings mournfully over a sparse horn and piano tune, and the linguistic shift hits you like a ton of bricks. The song, “All Alright,” is a somewhat somber closer for what is easily Sigur Ros’s most energized record, but it fits with the band’s new effort to tear down the curtain between itself and its devout followers.
Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust, or "With a Buzz In Our Ears, We Play Endlessly," takes Sigur Ros’s pop sensibilities a step further than 2005’s superb Takk, often sacrificing some of the band’s trademark, temple-sized atmosphere for a freer, punchier sound more reminiscent of Animal Collective (particularly on lead single “Gobbledigook”). Before we call it “stripped down,” however, there is a track that features a 90 piece orchestral and choral accompaniment, so, rest assured, the epic-ness lives on.
(Andrew Clayman)
Published in The Cleveland Scene, July 2008
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