Sigur Rós: Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

The first time I listened to Sigur Ros' new album, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust (With a Buzz in Our Ears, We Play Endlessly), I was laying on the ground in the dark of my daughter's room. She goes to bed early, and since my two month old boy is a yowling creature that has taken over the rest of the house, I hid myself in her room so that I could focus all of my senses on the Icelandic post-rock band's latest musical offering. Sigur Ros is one of those rare groups that actually care about the cohesive nature of an album, and I always make sure that my first listen is uninterrupted from start to finish. It was well worth it.

Like most fans, I had already heard the first track of the album, "gobbledigook," and knew to expect a looser, more natural/primal (and more marketable?) sound than the band's previous work. I admit that I was a little apprehensive about the change, since I consider the band's other three albums (don' t talk to me about von) to be such masterpieces that I expect my grandkids may well learn about them in university-level music appreciation courses alongside the works of Brahms, Smetana and Beethoven. I also knew that this was the first time that Sigur Ros had recorded an album outside of Iceland, and that they were working with Mark Ellis, a producer from the UK who has laid tracks with more mainstream bands like U2 and Smashing Pumpkins. I was not ready to see the band ditch their signature style altogether, especially not in the name of creating more "radio-friendly" compositions.

I needn't have worried -- Með suð was less a departure for the group than a celebration of their singular sound, with just enough new territory to fend off any accusations of repetition.

The album begins with such gleeful songs that I found myself staring up at the ceiling and involuntarily smiling around 2:11 of the second track. I almost broke my rule and interrupted my enjoyment to run downstairs and make my wife have a listen, despite the fact that she does not (yet) share my rapture for Sigur Ros. I only held off because I couldn't bear the thought of listening to the album through my laptop speakers (I never would have noticed what was so special about 2:11 through those tinny things), and there was no way I was going to pass over my headphones and give up my first listen to someone who once denigrated "Starálfur" as "background music."

With the fifth song, "Festival," things began to mellow a bit (at least for the initial 4:40 of that resonating marathonal inspiration), and the last half of the album cooed, soared and sighed, so much so that by the time the last notes of the album played I had run the gamut of emotions, from giddiness to sorrow, and was in awe of the flawless arrangements that the band had been good enough to collect and record for me. The songs display an expanded range for the group -- in "illgresi" Jónsi eschews his bowed guitar for an unexpected and folksy acoustic track, whereas "ára bátur" features a 67 piece orchestra and a boys choir recorded at Abbey Road's studio in the UK. The album also marks the first time that the band has recorded a song in English, although, perhaps to make up for this departure, "all alright" closes Með suð as the slowest and least accessible song on the album.

After days of being incapable of listening to anything else, it is safe to say that the group has actually succeeded in making an album that will likely capture a wider audience, if indeed that was their goal, and without sacrificing the incredible integrity of their craft, which defies the tried-and-true re-treading of trodden tracks that guides most of today's popular music.

tracklist

1. gobbledigook · 3:05 mins
2. inní mér syngur vitleysingur · 4:05 mins
3. góðan daginn · 5:15 mins
4. við spilum endalaust · 3:33 mins
5. festival · 9:24 mins
6. með suð í eyrum · 4:56 mins
7. ára bátur · 8:57 mins
8. illgresi · 4:13 mins
9. fljótavík · 3:49 mins
10. straumnes · 2:01 mins
11. all alright · 6:21 mins

For free streaming of Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, check out the band's website, but don't blame me for the naked European bottoms that you will see, which come from visual artist Ryan McGinley's acclaimed "I know where the summer goes" exhibit.