Sigur Rós - ‘Takk…’

Ideas burst free in every direction, where before the band might have worked through a concept to its utter conclusion (playing and developing a song as slowly as possible - the origin of a thousand 'glacial' metaphors), they now burn through ideas with scant regard. Songs begin in one time signature and end in another, having morphed beyond recognition on their passage through. A beautiful piano motif will be bombed into submission by power chords, which in turn will succumb to a heavenly string-led calm after the storm.

That said, Sigur Rós can still take a breathtakingly long time to get to the point. The see-sawing strings and distant piano of 'Milano' are like watching Omar Shariff appear on the horizon in Lawrence of Arabia, while, the orchestration towards the end of 'Andvari' changes almost imperceptibly on its way towards its epiphany.

Elsewhere, 'Takk…' is literally packed with music, so much so, that you wonder how the band managed to keep the space, clarity and separation in the sound. The ascent of 'Svo Hljott' is dizzying and disorientating, while 'Glosoli' features the crump of no fewer than three bass drums, before taking us through the ceiling of the song with a guitar that keep climbing long after you think it must have reached its zenith.
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