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Sigur Rós’ fifth album opens with a big splash, with the perkiest and most joyful two songs that the Icelandic band has recorded. “Gobbledigook” is Sigur Rós’ version of a pop song: barely over three minutes, with galloping drums and Philip Glass-like backing vocals, it’s terse and immediate. Next up, “Inní mér syngur vitleysingur” trades a shimmering, trebly hook between piano and vibraphone and rides stomping, handclapping percussion before finally opening up, as many Sigur Rós songs do, into a trumpet-blaring orchestral fanfare. Með Suð calms down after that: while individually, the songs often gradually crescendo, overall, the album ripples out toward placidity, in a decrescendo that focuses on Jon “Jonsi” Thor Birgisson’s peerless, androgynous voice backed by a simple acoustic guitar or piano or soft strings.

Produced by the band along with Flood in New York, London and Reykjavik, Með suð i eyrum við spilum endalaust (in English: With a buzz in our ears we play endlessly) isn’t a cohesive masterwork like Agaetis Byrjun. Instead, the quartet (backed by up to 86 others when the symphony, the boy’s choir and their longtime string section, Amiina, join in) pushes at their edges, focusing on individual ideas. Not that they forsake the grand gesture: “Festival” and “Ára Bátur” build to ecstatic, triumphant climaxes (and not coincidentally, at about 9 minutes each, they are the longest songs on the 55:36 minute album).

Sigur Rós’ dirty little secret is that many of their songs aren’t all that complex: they build their huge sonic cathedrals out of a brief melodic hook, but by taking it from a simple fragile piano line through bowed guitars to crashing orchestras, for instance, and by thrusting frenetic drums into the mix at just the right moment, they sound huge. The pattern serves them well, still. And, of course, Jonsi’s pure, angelic soprano is a thing of wonder, no matter what, if any, language he sings in (Icelandic? English? Hopelandic?). A few late tracks drift by too peacefully, but Med Sud is full of moments of sheer beauty and grand epiphanies.

Standout Tracks: “Inní mér syngur vitleysingur,” “Við spilum endlaaust,” “Festival” STEVE KLINGE

[Photo Credit: Eva Vermandel]