Sigur Ròs
Valtari

Since 1997, Sigur Ros represents an artistic entity too bright to be observed by everyone: you either love them or hate them, compromise is difficult.

After a pop turn that seemed to stir rumors of a breakup, or at least a crisis, Sigur Ros decided that a four-year silence could be interrupted by a release like this one, a subtle recap of experiments already seen in the past. Matured, and perhaps even expired. But let's try not to see it as a negative: the value of an album like ( ) does not allow us to think of Valtari as a mere commercial ploy.

The latest album continues a decade-long discourse of research on tone and the possibilities of describing a world exclusively filtered through Jonsi's aesthetic sense. Surely it still elicits emotions, a lot (Varuð), but paradoxically this seems no longer sufficient. The renewal is limited to electronic inserts (Rembihnútur) that, as perfectly polished as they are, do not alter the essential character of the production. You can't ask Jonsi to leave behind his existential dramas; indeed, they represent the core of the group's poetics, a fire burning at the mountaintop, where one can stop and observe everything, lamenting their own human misery, and shout out loud so as not to be heard.

A few minutes less would have made the listening experience smoother (Varðeldur could have been spared), but above all, the dynamics, so reverberating, tend to feel anguished and suffocating, they take your breath away. But as said at the beginning, when dealing with Sigur Ros, everything is valid, even its perfect opposite.