Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust

This new, more acoustic, style is fresh and uplifting. Really a great CD. Sigur Ros continues to be amazing.

amazon.com kept putting this band in my recommended section, so i bought it. then i wondered if i was going insane or whether the dude's english was just really bad. he was speaking icelandic! what the hell? i need to have an idea what the heck they are saying, without having to learn some obscure new language. it is also a little too soft for my taste. i mean, the band has some neat arrangements, obviously they have talent, but the foreign language and too soft tone makes it hard for me to say i really love it.

Their fifth album starts in buoyant, wide-eyed pop mode, moves through some twinkling, delicate passages, revisits their usual slow-build post-rock prettiness and reaches an ambitious climax with "Ara Batur", an epic, orchestral requiem recorded with the London Sinfonietta and the London Oratory Boy's Choir, before ebbing away.
To the horror of some of their adoring fans, the CD actually contains a few melodies which one might tentatively describe as pop tunes.
More a development than a departure, the album blends a lighter, more dynamic approach with out-there creative impulses.
The songs are sung in Icelandic, rather than the band's invented language of Hopelandic, and one song, "All Alright", is even performed in English, albeit via the singer Jonsi's gossamer falsetto.
Above all, these songs feel celebratory -- with a gleeful, stomping beat, soaring strings and deliciously rhyming couplets.
It is all pleasing to the ears and immaculately constructed.
Produced by the renowned Flood (U2, Depeche Mode, Smashing Pumpkins) and assisted by a string quartet and brass section, the album was recorded in its entirety this year: impressive speed, reflected in the joyous, unfettered arrangements and the sheer plasticity of the music.
What Sigur Ros have lost in the ringing of fairy bells, they may just gain in the ringing of cash registers.
Possibly, if Sigur Ros had intended to take over the world, they might have translated their album title into its English version: "With a buzz in our ears we play endlessly".
I'm loving it.

If i spoke Iclandic this may sound better, but since I don't it just sounds silly. They really sound like The Samples, remember The Samples, they made all their good music in the early 90s... They sang in English.

And if the tune "Góðan daginn" is about spanking then it really is silly.

Good Day!

3 1/2

Starting off briskly, the majestic quartet's up-tempo pop dabblings seem to have not hindered the new album at all, which includes something for everyone. Though they revisit their trademark sonic buildups and offer humble acoustic contrast, a certain balance just does not seem to have been struck in the track sequencing, tapering off in the final stretch, and often sounding like a collection of quite good b-sides instead of their latest release.