Number 5 alive!

með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust is the fifth album from Iceland’s sigur rós.

Their previous album takk… took off so unexpectedly successfully it must have been a daunting release to follow.

You’ve heard clips from it.

Even if you never listen to the radio but only watch BBC television, you’ve heard so many excerpts from takk…

Many mainstream broadcasters – the BBC in particular – love playing sigur rós as backing tracks underneath their trailers and station idents.

The most widely known is the haunting hoppípolla (go on, click on it, you know you really want to).

In a way með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust showcases the strengths of sigur rós. Almost other-worldly melodies cleverly scored for an eclectic range of instruments greet the ear like an old friend.

við spilum endalaust could have been written by a fusion of The Beatles (mid-creative period) and The Alan Parsons Project. Actually, isn’t that from where TAPP sprang?

The icing on this particular Icelandic cake though is Ara Bátur. A simple piano accompaniment to jónsi’s distinctive voice is gradually supported by strings that enter at pp then gradually ride the gentle crescendo/diminuendo waves. When the choir add to the mix it takes the listener’s breath away. At 4’42” the song changes, melody alters and shifts until at 7’06” the brass joins the growing musical throng and before long we have a full orchestra (plus synths), punctuated by percussion and supported by organ and yes, for the next two and a half minutes I am standing in the knave of that breathtakingly beautiful Cathedral on top of the hill in Reykjavik, listening to those huge organ pipes pumping the air around me full of Major chords.

með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust by sigur rós

Yes, I like it.

Yes I like them.

Yes I love their country.

And yes, this is a photograph of Soph outside Reykjavik’s Cathedral with a statue of the real guy who discovered America standing on her head.

B.