Sigur Rós
( )

It is not easy to talk about Sigur Rós, and even less so to talk about this third effort of theirs, which is elusive and undefinable right from its name; it doesn’t have a name, in fact, but it can't be called the "White album" because of its illustrious predecessor, nor "eponymous" because of those two parentheses () that make a haunting show of themselves on the pure background.

The album in parentheses, that’s what I will call it, contains eight tracks, also untitled, that are, however, intimately linked to each other, and difficult to distinguish if taken individually, being moments of an indivisible whole. Sigur Rós' music reflects the solitude of Iceland's eternal ice and the melancholy of the endless night... it is meditative, minimalist music, with a few piano or guitar riffs repeated and dragged endlessly in a hypnotic manner. Occasionally, Jonsi’s magical voice appears to accompany us on this strange aimless journey... Little can be analyzed on a technical level because it is all of an overwhelming simplicity, the music is simply beautiful. The compositions move on a constant rhythmic plane with no appreciable variation during the 60 minutes of the album, except for the last track where the drums become almost hard-rock, and such extended atmospheres should be boring, but they are not; all the repetitions seem right and appropriate.

As already mentioned, this is meditative music, and it should be evaluated unconventionally, more for the emotions it conveys than for the skill with which it is constructed. You listen to it and you like it even if you can't understand why, it seduces and captures you before you realize it... I did not intend to write a review like this, but as I write, I am listening to the album and as it goes on it becomes increasingly difficult to find any flaws in it, I can only suggest listening to it in the silence of the night, letting it guide our dreams.