Sigur Ros makes the most hopeful, inspiring, jaw-dropping, serene, calming, beautiful, devastating, and flat out rockingest music I've ever heard.

I stole the title of this post from the name of a facebook group, except replace sigur ros with bright eyes, so that's the origin of that.

Anyway, to piggy back off of nate's last post, the new sigur ros album Takk... is one of the most gorgeous pieces of music I've ever heard in a long long time. I know I tend to droll at the bit over a lot of things on this blog (Star Wars, Eels, the gathering darkness) but this album makes me weep. And seeing them at the beacon last monday night was like some kind of miracle, the show was awe inspiring, you hear these sounds on a record and you think to yourself, well yeah it's all machine processed and manipulated. Once you see that it's just these four icelandic dudes rockin out, it makes you feel like all the things Robin Williams tells Matt Damon he's missed on that park bench in Good Will Hunting. First off, singer jónsi birgisson's voice sounds like Thom Yorke's DNA reconstituted into the body of a ghostly angelic Icelandic child. I do now know how he does it, but goddamn, whoever encouraged him as a child into music should have endless amounts of riches and doubloons heaped upon them. The standout tracks are the previously written about Glósóli and Sæglópur, but Mílanó, Andvari, and Hoppípolla are just like as one reviewer put it rather ostentatiously, listenting to god cry tears of gold. That's ridiculous I know but the point remains. Hell the whole album is spectacular, these guys seem to get better and better with every new recorded output, this is their best album yet. Takk indeed.

With all this being said, I should recognize a major failing of mine and apologize to Mark Primeaux. I remember in 11th or 12th grade, I forget which, he came into muz (our lunchtime music listening club) and was really jazzed about this band sigur ros and their album Ágætis Byrjun. Me being the damned fool that I was and still am, looked at the cover with its angel fetus plugged into some kind of electrical device and hearing about how the guitar player uses a violin bow instead of a pick. I brushed them off as weirdos and didn't even give them a chance, laughed them off as a wannabe radiohead.
Ah the foul stench of youth how it corrupted ye... Luckily I am much older and much wiser now, so I know better.
Sorry Mark, you were so fucking right.

"Night falling on the city
Sparkling red and gold
Don’t it just look so pretty
This disappearing world"

P.S. The new david gray album is really good too.