Sigur Ros - "Átta"
It's been TEN YEARS
International post-rock icons Sigur Ros have been very quiet for a while now. Their last album came out in 2013, making “Átta” their first release in ten years. This album comes a year-and-a-half after the announcement that keyboardist (and, honestly, multi-instrumentalist) Kjartan Sveinsson was rejoining the band, having left in 2012. With the reunion, it seems that a jam session evolved into an album.
Also, the album has nearly zero percussion, relying heavily on vocals and strings for the majority of the tracks, but with support from the London Symphony Orchestra throughout. The lack of percussion is partly due to the departure of the band’s drummer in 2018 due to SA allegations.
As a final note before delving into the actual review, I want to point out the brilliance of the album’s name. As the 8th studio album, “Átta” is very on-the-nose. It means “Eight”. I’m sure there are discussions to be had, given that the Arabic digit ‘8’ is the infinity symbol stood on one end. But Sigur Ros are far from the first band to title an album based on its ordinal ranking in their chronological discography.
The album is very much ambient minimalism. There are never many elements in play at any given moment. But the ones in use, be they strings, keys, or vocals, are utilized in expansive ways, making each element seem huge. Each track feels like auditory cinematography. The songs swell and fade, change focus, and shift scenes bit by bit. The vocals are all legato, semi-operatic, and in Icelandic. So there’s no understanding them on my part.
But they’re hauntingly beautiful.
The ambient nature of this album makes it great for background music. And it would become an experience in multi-speaker stereo environments where it can fill the entire space.
Finally, I understand that, for Sigur Ros, given the ambient, cinematic nature of the music, the music videos are crucial for understanding the meaning.
"Blóðberg" is a wild thyme plant found in Iceland, which translates to “Blood Stone”. I’m not entirely certain why this plant was picked as the title for this song, but the video is clearly about the pending horrors of climate change. The video is largely uninteresting, but also troubling.
"Andrá" means “breathe”, and the video shows a number of Sigur Ros fans talking about what their music means to them, and how it has helped them through different times in their lives.
It is worth mentioning that the tracks used in the videos are extended from the music found on the album, itself.
“Átta” doesn’t disappoint. It’s beautiful. It’s worth soaking in. And I think I’m going to just enjoy it for a bit before I try to really nail it down.
Rating: Teal Green