Disco!graphy: Sigur Rós, Part 2

Disco!graphy is a regular feature that catches up with bands by exploring their entire full-length output.

On today's mix...
( ) (2002)
Takk... (2005)

A friend once related that he liked to listen to Sigur Rós on airplanes because it made him feel like, well, maybe it'd be ok to die. ( ) is almost certainly the Sigur Rós album most fitting of that sentiment, and by that, I mean it's their best. It's divided into two rather distinct halves, with the first four tracks offering the most direct, unfussy music of their career, while the second half veers toward the more subtle, quiet, and ambient.

The first half is easily the most striking music of Sigur Rós, something made possible by the enormous amount of restraint displayed on this disc. Gone (well, mostly) are the theatrics. Opener "Vaka" puts the focus on eight piano notes and a spectacular Vonlenskan vocal performance by Jónsi. Similarly, "Fyrsta"'s joys come from calm guitar work, and both tracks might rank as career highs were they not immediately followed by "Samskeyti" and "Njósnavélin".

"Njósnavélin" returns to the more epic structures of Ágætis byrjun, but manages to keep things clean and unbusy, rarely straddling more than two elements and wisely keeping the focus on the melody's complex beauty. And "Samskeyti" is the track that most stuns in its simplicity: purely instrumental, it rides on a short, slippery piano melody in an odd key signature, one that builds intensity through the variation of a single note on each repetition and ultimately climaxes by moving an octave higher. It needs to be heard to be believed, really. I once tried to map out the variations on pen and paper (in, well, an airport), and there really seemed to be no logical pattern. It's purely visceral. It's actually the track that really hooked me onto Sigur Rós in the first place, due to its key placement in Mysterious Skin. I'm, incidentally, happy to say that no movie could deserve it more (I'm less sure of the band's decision to license out "Starálfur" to The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.)

( )'s second half is significantly less accessible than the first, full of difficult-to-decipher melodies and darkness. Though none of these tracks are ultimately as memorable as anything on the first half, they do nothing to betray it, and at this point, Sigur Rós have earned the right to more difficult material. If anything, you can always hold on to Jónsi's routinely beautiful vocal performances.

Following two very different experimental albums that defined Sigur Rós as a band to pay attention to, Takk... ("Thanks...") is the sound of a band ready to refine their sound. Combining the accessibility of ( ) with the grandeur of Ágætis byrjun, it's, naturally, pretty perfect. "Glosoli" takes a conventionally pretty melody for the band but rocks out at the end rather than cuing the violins. "Hoppipolla" places "Samskeyti"'s hypnotic draw within an epic builder, and the resulting climax is so satisfying that they devote a whole extra track ("Mea Bloanasir") to revel in it. "Se Lest" keeps things light and easy by breaking out some horns and a music box--a move that might recall certain other Icelandic musical accomplishments. And lead single "Seaglopur" is the album's centerpiece, the type of track that you'd trade a million Chris Martins for--and throw in Gwenyth, too. If the album has a flaw, it's merely in the fear that the band has nowhere else to go. It's a fear I hope will soon prove unfounded.

( ) - 9/10
Takk... - 9/10