I was worried. Valtari really felt like a dead-end for Sigur Rós. They’d done the slow, elegiac thing for so long, it appeared they’d sunk to miasmic navel-gazing. While that record evoked the placid glaciers of their native Iceland, Kveikur reminds us not to forget the volcanoes.
This is the most aggressive thing they’ve ever done, and it’s a welcome new direction. With the departure of keyboardist Kjartan Sveinsson, they’re down to a trio, and the emphasis is on sparser and more direct arrangements. Lead single “Brennisteinn” is a stately piece buoyed by a heavily gated and overdriven bass. For all its sturm und drang, it’s still a Sigur Rós song, buoyed by an irrepressible chorus. A bit past the midpoint, the distortion disappears, and it switches to a double-time chorale.
Dýrason’s imaginative percussion takes center stage on “Hrafntinna,” and the instrumentation is novel, even if the track drags on a bit more that necessary. “Isjaki” is downright danceable, with an infectious and glimmering vocal hook in the chorus. “Stormur” recalls the giddy ebb and flow of “Hoppipolla,” and the title track is their token flirtation with metal.
Not that it’s really a stretch for them. Stepping back and looking closely, they’ve always had a kinship with the slow, turgid crawl of metal, even if they’ve never settled for getting mired in its depths. Here they do just that. Were it not for Birgisson’s melodic sense, it would seem utterly silly, but it’s actually not much out of character at all.
“Rafstraumur” and “Bláþráður” (means “thin thread.” I can’t understand the lyrics, either) are classic Sigur Rós fare given a healthy kick in the pants, and the album closes out on an placid instrumental.
Musically, this record is phenomenal. The problem is that it’s hobbled by a muddy mix that’s smeared out in the lower midrange. Birgisson’s voice is often obscured by the bass drum, and the crescendos in “Stormur” and “Kveikur” become nearly unlistenable on decent equipment. “Rafstraumur” is certainly robbed of some of its impact when I’m having to hold the headphones away from my ears at 3:23.
The wall-of-sound approach to engineering only works to keep the listener at arm’s length, and that’s nearly fatal for a record that holds out the promise of immersion.