I’ve been totally digging listening to the new Sigur Rós CD Hvarf/Heim, which is really a double EP rather than an album. True fans appear to be disappointed because the discs contain re-recordings from their first album while the second disc contains live versions of new tunes that sound exactly like the recorded versions.
That said, I love Sigur Rós, who are like an Icelandic version of Yes tripping on Ecstasy and moving very slowly. That’s Scrappy’s assessment, here’s what The Guardian (the great UK paper) has to say:
“…There’s Salka, which shows off both their way with a winding guitar melody and enviable capacity to sound simultaneously wistful and triumphant. Hafsól, meanwhile, demonstrates the band’s ability to alight on a sound that’s unfathomably appealing: in this case a drumstick being rattled against bass guitar strings, a noise that, improbably enough, turns out to have the same warm, comforting quality as the smell of freshly brewed coffee.”