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New music: Icelandic post-rockers Sigur Ros take a dark turn with "Isjaki"

April 24, 2013

Sigur Ros
Sigur Ros live at Brooklyn's Prospect Park
Ryan Muir / NPR

Icelandic post-rock act Sigur Ros (downgraded to a trio after some recent departures) have made their name with swelling, emotive tracks built on ambient, mind-bending textures and inventive instrumental and vocal flourishes. Their seventh studio full-length Kveikur has been announced for release this June, and the band has promised that the album will find them exploring a "darker" and "more aggressive" sound. They already teased one track back in March, and now they've returned with another new song, "Ísjaki" that bears out the band's predictions about the record's direction. It's a far more dense, rhythmic and driving track than we're used to hearing from the band, but in true Sigur Ros fashion, the song's thickly layered soundscape is decorated with unusual sounds both dulcet and dissonant.