Sigur Ros

Untitled upon its release and outfitted with eight untitled songs, Sigur Ros' third LP was highfalutin out of the gate. But then, this mercurial post-rock is pretty hard to put into words. More grandiose than its predecessor (as if that were even possible), the disc is two acts, the first hopeful and melodic, the second cacophonous and sprawling; the centerpiece is track four (aka "The Nothing Song"), whose careening, delayed guitars and determined throb urge along Jon Thor Birgisson's pained wail. Another intergalactic civil war fought by teddy bears.

Sigur Ros make atmospheric music with lyrics in garbled Icelandic, heavy on the strings and
keyboards -- beautiful, but with enough presence to not devolve into New Age wallpaper.
Radiohead cited Sigur Ros' 1999 Agaetis Byrjun as a major influence on their own sonic
experimentations; when it was released in the States last year, Americans got to discover
the pleasures of melodies that sounded like they had floated into the room from... More >