release date: Jun. 14, 2013
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,46]
producer: Sigur Rós
label: XL Recordings - nationality: Iceland
Track highlights: 1. "Brennisteinn" - 3. "Ísjaki" (4 / 5) - 5. "Stormur" - 6. "Kveikur" - 7. "Rafstraumur" - 8. "Bláþráður"
7th studio album by Sigur Rós follows only one year after Valtari and is released on XL Recordings and produced by the band assisted by former member Kjartan Sveinsson and Alex Somers.
Almost as usual with Sigur Rós, they enjoy stylistic changes. This time it might be the result of a change in the usual line-up due to the reduction from a quartet to a trio, as Kjartan Sveinsson (keyboards, guitar, vocals, since 1998) left the band in early 2012, and on this, he only contributes as technical personnel.
The album marks a stronger return to a more traditional shape of post-rock in respect to what we heard on the predecessor, and this time they combine with an industrial touch that I haven't heard them play with before. At some point it resembles the music of Mogwai more than ever (listen e.g. to Come on Die Young, 1999, and Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, 2011), although, Sigur Rós is still more ambient, ethereal, and dream pop-founded, which ain't necessarily bad. In a sense it's also a return to their first more experimental releases only without the art rock connection.
Compared to Valtari, I'm not entirely convinced this is an improvement but as I've come to experience with this band, you need to give it time to unfold.
