Review: Sigur Rós – Átta

Sigur Rós’ eighth album Átta is full of individual majesty that becomes cumbersome as a whole.

 

Exactly one decade ago, I remember being caught off guard by Sigur Rós’ seventh album Kveikur, Icelandic for “candlewick” or “fuse.” It was an uncharacteristically heavy release from the band, and their only album not to feature founding member Kjartan Sveinsson on keyboards. More strikingly, it was released only a year after their gentlest and most minimal album, Valtari (“Steamroller”). Kveikur won me over fairly quickly, especially its single “Stormur,” but I had no idea it was the last new album I’d hear from the band for ten years.

Sigur Rós eighth album Átta, which somewhat unimaginatively means “eight,” again caught me by surprise, for entirely different reasons. For starters, the band didn’t announce it until it was released. Second, it came on the heels of a period where it looked like Sigur Rós was effectively over. Sure, the band had their neat little cameo on Game of Thrones in 2014 and toured extensively in 2017, but the last decade was not exactly great for them. In 2018, their drummer Orri Páll Dýrason left the band after being accused of sexual assault, reducing Sigur Rós to the duo of singer Jón Þór “Jónsi” Birgisson and bassist Georg Hólm. Around the same time, the Icelandic Government brought charges of tax evasion against the band, a case that followed them for years. The closest thing they released to an album during this time was an orchestral collaborative piece in 2020 titled Odin’s Raven Magic, which was actually recorded all the way back in 2004.  Jónsi also released his second solo album Shiver in 2020. It was not until February 2022, when Svenisson re-joined and the band announced they were back to recording and touring, that I thought Sigur Rós might not call it quits after all.

Átta isn’t at all reflective of the band’s tumultuous past few years. Instead, it’s tranquil enough to be a sequel to Valtari, while being in no way “minimal,” since it was recorded with the London Contemporary Orchestra. Its individual tracks are lush and gorgeous, acting as soundscapes that take you away to another world. Consumed as a whole, however, it might not whisk you away quite so far.

Now, calling Sigur Rós “cinematic” is like calling The National “sad” – we get it already. That said, Átta is their most cinematic album to date. It sounds more like a film score than a studio album from a band with a guitarist, bass player, and keyboardist. The absence of a drummer is really noticeable throughout, and you can barely hear the other rock instruments. Jónsi notably plays guitar with a cello bow, as he’s done on most Sigur Rós albums, making him blend in seamlessly with the orchestration. Really, the London Contemporary Orchestra’s strings do the heavy lifting on Átta, their presence ebbing and flowing throughout each track.

This score-like, orchestral feel is both a blessing and a curse for Átta. The strings enter the songs with a degree of subtlety and always exit with a delicate fadeout. This creates a noticeable gap between the tracks, with some instances more noticeable than others. “Blóðberg” starts with about 15 seconds of ambient noise before strings enter, and “Skel” ends with a full minute of the orchestra playing scattered notes after the song finishes in earnest. The worst offender is the closing track “8,” whose nearly 10-minute runtime includes 5 minutes of actual music and about 5 minutes of gentle tones you can only hear if your volume is maxed out. There’s essentially no flow to the album, especially when compared to triumphs like Ágætis Byrjun and Takk, where listening to the album start-to-finish made for an entirely different experience than listening to one track at random. Átta is more a compilation of ten beautiful, self-contained pieces, as if each is scoring a slightly different short film rather than one continuous epic.

As cumbersome as Átta can be when listening to it in one sitting, I don’t want to short-change the splendor of its songs, which will please anyone who has stuck with Sigur Rós this long. The opening track “Glóð” has a loop of distorted vocal samples and a climax of strings that sounds like the second half of Ágætis Byrjun’s “Starálfur.” It feels like a warm “welcome back” from the band. “Klettur” is a standout for being one of the few tracks with a beat – a deep thud (like the repetitive bass drum on Takk’s “Glósóli”) that contrasts nicely against the album’s highest violin notes. “Skel” switches between a violin melody matched by Jónsi’s falsetto and a piano melody paired with his lower register to make for a dynamic listen. Pianos similarly carry “Andrá,” which also features the only audible guitar plucks, while “Ylur” dials back the instrumentation halfway through to let Jónsi deliver his most prominent vocals on the album.

I imagine it’s difficult for post-rock acts like Sigur Rós, as well as their fans, to argue that this subgenre deserves your full attention as more than just “background” music.. Átta unfortunately doesn’t do much to disprove this idea. There’s a certain homogeneity to the album’s bountiful strings, especially with regards to tempo. I don’t think the orchestra plays anything faster than a half note. These slow, sweeping sounds create a majestic feeling at first, but are subject to diminishing results over 10 tracks. You’ll certainly be glad Sigur Rós have pulled back from the precipice of five years ago, and that they’re back to making the awe-inspiring music they’re known for, yet Átta’s ambiance lacks the brilliance and captivation of their preceding albums.

Rating: 6/10