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There has been more buzz surrounding the second international release from the Icelandic band Sigur
Ros than ever. With Scandanavian groups like the Hives, Division of Laura Lee, and Blindside on the rise, Sigur
Ros provides a soundtrack completely different from its garage-rock brethren. It is superfluous to say that Sigur Ros
are inspired by the sweeping grandeur of the Icelandic landscape, but their progressive songs evoke that same sense of monumentality,
of being powerful and fragile all in the same breath.
The new album, ( ), takes the songcraft of Agaetis Byrjun and expands to a new level, one that many fans may find less approachable. The album is divided into two parts by a
thirty second silence, and the change in tone is all too evident. As briefly addressed on their previous album, singer/guitarist
Jonsi Birginsson opted to sing the entire album in Hopelandic, a dipthong-heavy language of nonsensical words that are tailored
to fit the song (the song Olsen Olsen on Agaetis Byrjun was done this way). This may seem as a dangeroius move, to produce
an album that has no words, but at the same time it gives the listener a chance to interpret the song as he/she chooses.
I must admit, I was slightly aprehensive at finding the translations to the Icelandic lyrics on Agaetis Byrjun, because each
song was a concrete set of words the singer had chosen to say. Now there is no interpretation except the one in my heart.
The songs become all the more personal as an individual's emotions are tied to each song. This is an album that is not
complete until it has been listened to; only then is it made something. The fans become as much a part of the music as
the four young men creating it. One fan from New York said, "I hadn't been in a church since I was little and this was
the closest thing to a pure religious experience I had had in years. You can attach your own storyboard to the music
and it can be very uplifting. I followed the swaying motion of Jonsi's elbow as he bowed the guitar, which rose up to
the string section behind him and then I followed it into a vanishing point, into a keyhole of nothingness." What do the members of Sigur Ros have to say about their effect on people? "I think our songs are
emotional at times and everyone has their own interpretation of them," explains Georg Holm, the band's bassist. "They
get a mental picture in their head. They get a certain feeling or remember something that happened to them when they
were younger, or they have plans for the future and decide when they're listening to us, 'Thats it.'"
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