What actually happened to Sigur Rós? I can still clearly remember a friend enthusiastically recommending "Ágætis Byrjun" to me at a record fair. He hailed them as the ‘Pink Floyd of the 21st century’ and described their sound as falling somewhere between Porcupine Tree and Godspeed! You Black Emperor. That sounded irresistible at the time. So I bought the CD. And what I heard was a strange, out-of-time brand of post-rock – modern, yet with unmistakable references to the sonic experiments of the progressive and psychedelic bands of the 1970s. It didn’t sound bad, but it didn’t quite strike a chord with me. It took a few listens before the album that defined Sigur Rós’s sound really clicked with me. Today, “Ágætis byrjun” is a post-rock classic and, all things considered, the only Sigur Rós album I’d recommend off the top of my head. The peculiar mix of unhurried music, Jónsi’s strange voice, the electric guitar played with a cello bow, and the mysterious language of the lyrics (here: mainly Icelandic, later the invented language Vonlenska) isn’t something you can or would want to listen to all the time, but today, on an early, cool autumn evening, the music and the mood go together perfectly. To answer the initial question: Sigur Rós are still active and are probably the most successful post-rock band of all time. I’ve lost track of them a bit. Perhaps it’s time to listen to their albums again and reassess them.
