Sigur Rós
Kveikur

Kjartan Sveinsson has left the band. Wishing to lighten the mood by paraphrasing the (unfortunately?) well-known bibliographic title, we can then complete the focus (the year 2013 is upon us) on the undeniable crisis of the creative processes of Sigur Rós. The fact that the significance of this has been downplayed by the once Icelandic quartet is equally apparent and in equal measure invests in a prodromal reflection of the less exciting "Valtari" (despite the impressive and ambitious parallel project "Valtari Mystery Film Experiment" and despite the promotional idea of the "Valtari Hour," it remains a fact that in the subsequent worldwide tour supporting the album, the aforementioned now ex-keyboardist was “re-integrated” in terms of sound in the lineup through substitutions with Ólafur Björn Ólafsson and Kjartan Dagur Hólm). Deprived of the melodic lines (often new classic piano) drawn by Kjartan's keyboards, the group thus found itself de facto having to reinvent a global stylistic profile. The result is an album almost inevitably as controversial as "Kveikur." The change of pace is such as to induce talk of a new starting point, reconfiguring the atmospheric "Valtari" as the closure of a cycle opened exactly by the first album "Von." The sweet and intensely bright boreal melodies shattered like skimming winds over distant shoegazer plains, then, warmer and more placid, slipped to shape the more complex dreamlike scenario of "angelic sleepwalking" up to the moving poignancy of the earthbound childhood dream slowed motion of "Hoppípolla." The ethereal folktronic atmospheres and the rarefied piano lines dissolved in the almost static ambient of "Dauðalogn" (regarding the aforementioned sixth studio album of the now Icelandic trio, various members had coined the evocative image "an avalanche in slow motion") seem almost to fade like the "Summer Light" of Jón Kalman Stefánsson into a darkness dotted, however, with incandescent clangors. Thus, enter the clangs of "Brennisteinn," the leading single, in which noises that vaguely echo even the more "composed" Neubauten (almost an oxymoron) herald the advent of a compact guitar wall reminiscent of the Smashing Pumpkins with Jonsi / Jón Þór Birgisson's soothing voice flowing sub-glacially under icy instrumental buttresses. The album's industrial matrix emerges with enhanced clarity in the title track "Kveikur" (the theme of fire understood as an initial spark that runs along a "fuse" or hovers on the "wick" of a candle also recurs textually... "Kveikjum í kveikitræðrum / Og hlaupum / Höldum fast fyrir eyrun...", "We light a candle / and run for a safe shelter / and wait, / we wait..." is just the beginning of a storm of embers, explosive magma, violent geyser jets...) while at the sound level, what most seems to approach as a term of comparison are the Depeche Mode around the "Ultra" period in vaguely post-rock tones... (a dark drone with an industrial flavor wraps like a halo of fixed light a rhythmic scan never so explicitly electro, heavy and slowed...) it is the probable expressive climax of the work. Where the second single "Ísjaki" reshuffles the more recognizably sigurrossian melodic atmospheres with new, dynamic drum lines, cleaner and more powerful, "Rafstaumur" is the most impetuous and forceful episode of the entire work, a perfect synthesis between Jonsi's angelic vocalizations, "Berlin" industrial noises, and synthesized neo-classical symphonies, it moves perfectly well within the new stylistic coordinates. Finally, the concluding "Var," instrumental and punctuated by pianistic touches, again lets the light curtains of an icy green aurora float freely in the middle of winter. Let it be clear that Sigur Rós, precisely because they manage to maintain an extremely high stylistic mark, now (who have just grazed the European Continent for some dates previewing 4 unreleased tracks) retain only the origins of "indie" or "alternative," and it is not little... the imponderable hopelandic plus that has marked their huge difference compared to countless other projects/monikers/bands of an ever more "explosive" and supposed "Icelandic scene," with each album always perfectly aligned and fitted within a foundational musical matrix that grazes a sort of new "classical" with all sorts of contemporary and sometimes futuristic contaminations, has given rise to an experience that has the contours of a unique. However, the three Icelanders record for EMI, and also for Geffen (that is, to remember: Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Guns'n'Roses, but also Garbage and The Cure: I don't believe that in the context of showbiz, coincidences are almost ever casual, and indeed here is the undeniably great videomaker Floria Sigismondi working on "Leaning Towards Solace" and ' "Untitled #1 (Vaka)" after shooting the well-known "The End of the World" of the former Imaginary Boys but also "Obstacle 1" of Interpol, "Chinese Burn" by Curve, and "Supermasive Black Hole" by Muse... precisely what one means by alternative-rock). Going back to "Kveikur" (which is still Sigur Rós' latest studio work): a misstep for some, a new course for others (in the minority), perhaps an album to re-evaluate.