Live Review: REVIEW: Sigur Ros 'Valtari' LP

I have been listening to this record on repeat for the past week or so. There really isn’t much I can say. This is truly heaven on earth, carving-sculpting-redefining the emotive landscapes of this listener.

The feeling of a wholeness, once and for all, I am home, whole and at one with everything.

It has been almost four years since the release of their last studio album Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust, each and everyone of us eagerly anticipating the symphonic bliss that is Sigur Rós and the end result is truly majestic. Ephemeral and wistfully beautiful, the eight tracks that Valtari is comprised of rest within the heartmind&soul so very very well, nestling within your right ventricle helping your heart sing its universal song.

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Along with each track, Sigur Rós, have commissioned a dozen film makers, among them are Ramin Bahrani, Alma Har’el and John Cameron Mitchell. Each film maker is given the same modest budget and told to create whatever comes into their heads when they listen to their given track: [taken from their website] “We never meant our music to come with a pre-programmed emotional response. We don’t want to tell anyone how to feel and what to take form it. With the films, we have literally no idea what the directors are going to come back with. None of them know what the others are doing, so hopefully it could be interesting.” While the album itself is one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard, from the looks of the first two film clips they are only adding layers of beauty to the already seraph like souls within each song.

Valtari builds within the first three tracks, reaching it’s pinnacle as Jonsí’s falsetto and the yearning strings of Varúð kiss each of the notches of your spine, stretching skyward, soaring through crystal clear starlit skies.

The entire record is utterly euphoric, each and every song as well as the pulsating interludes that bind them the record takes you somewhere else. Ender Fjögur Píanó dips within your soul, lifting you from the land, weightless you float atop the trees and mountains, the earths cracks and creases entwine and expand as the strokes of an artists brush wash the earth with pastel blues and the deepest of greens, pure whites peaks and charcoal greys cliff face drop away before you.

Every track dilates past the point of the five minute mark taking the listener on a glorious ride through the most incredible of aural textures. There really isn’t anything I can say about this record other than you need to get yourself a copy, put on some head phones, lay your head upon your pillow and listen.

Check out a preview of the record below, this one is called 'Ekki muuk'