Crashing waves of volume build to a cathartic release
Sigur Rós
Enigmatic Icelanders Sigur Rós are masters of the soothing slow build, the majestic middle eight and the rockout race to the finish.
It takes time to deliver such a stately, precise, atmospheric arc so their current tour comprises a long set of two halves, much of it revisiting tracks from their 2002 album ( ), including opening number Untitled #1 – Vaka, a hypnotic cocktail of returning keyboard player Kjartan Sveinsson’s minimal piano, Georg Hólm’s soft bass rumble and Jónsi’s pure vocals, now with humanising fissures.
A new studio album is in the works for the first time in a decade but this was a reacquainting with old favourites such as Svefn-g-englar, its beseeching melody and epic surge heralded with sonar chime, elegant baroque shimmer and Jónsi’s signature bowed guitar.
Its reverie was interrupted by a fuzzy, distorted noise interlude; another track was powered by hefty drumming and embellished with pliable
bass. Such shifts in tone and volume were matched by an exquisite stage and lighting design, with the core trio, plus touring drummer Ólafur Ólafsson, initially manifesting in moody silhouette against infernal red lighting among curtains of tensile cables.
The lighting palette ranged from inky monochrome to a bright, almost disturbing acid yellow for the melodramatic Dauðalagið (“the death song”),which teased with a number of false endings and a lingering finish.
The delicate Smáskifa smoothed the way to the
intermission before a shorter second half zeroed in on a brace of amped-up indie post-rock anthems, delivering crashing waves of volume, followed by cathartic release, even a brief squeal of feedback.
The guttural Roger Watersstyle bassline and clamorous build of Kveikur was a climactic highlight, as was Festival, which ranged from an almost neo-classical opening to an exultant finish, eliciting some rare engagement with the enraptured audience from this taciturn band.