Album Review: Sigur Rós - Hvarf-Heim

Grade: 78%........................................."

"Halfsol" - mp3

Under my “Genre” column, ITunes has deemed Hvarf-Heim “Unclassifiable.” The term could suit any Sigur Rós album, right along with dreamy, escapist, bleak, dense, sparse, ephemeral, crystalline, wasteland, wonderland. Hvarf-Heim may not be the band’s most accomplished effort, but proves the perfect aperitif for that post-Takk, pre-next-album transition.

The eleven tracks appear on two EPs: Hvarf, or “Disappeared,” ones that disappeared, aka never made it into the band’s catalog; and Heim, or “Home,” reworkings of old favorites.

First-out-of-the-gate “Salka” sounds like a ( )-era number, which might prove a turn off for listeners burnt out on Jonsi’s wailing “E-sai-you.” (Apparently this is the only word in the made-up Hopelandic language -- does this seem like a wasted opportunity to anyone else?) The band picks up the pace with “Hjamalind,” then blasts us with “I Gær,” one of the album’s finest stampeding moments. Yet disc one’s show-stopper, literally, is the ten-minute closer “Hafsol,” whose plucked strings and flutes and e-bows evoke the bombastic epics of Ágætis Byrjun. “Hafsol” buoys, and more to the point, justifies the album.

Disc two commences with “Untitled #3” (under its "real" name “Samskeyti”), the album’s only real “D’uh” moment. The completely faithful version of a piano-only track left this listener wondering, “Why bother?” “Staralfur,” though by no means superior to the album version, sees Jonsi’s vocals at their most tender (See: four-minute mark. Feel: shivers). Ágætis' gorgeous titular track receives an equally elegant send-up here, a Heim highlight along with a recording of “Von” that crushes the original and Hvarf versions under its mighty steel-toed boot.

With Sigur Rós, criticisms seem like nitpicking. I’m reminded of that late-semester freshman paper. There’s always that A-student who spends a semester proving himself. Then he hands in a perfunctory final paper that, while not his best work, evinces potentiality glimmering under the surface, ready to be mined when he comes up for air.

Sigur Rós: Take this C+ in stride. Relax, enjoy your break. I'll see you next semester.