Sigur Rós – With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly

With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly – Sigur Rós

By Chris Peken

Perhaps you missed them live, or this release passed you by. Fear not, it’s never too late to go back and discover the grand, magnificent orchestra pop of Sigur Rós. Remarkably,even after five studio albums, Sigur Rós continue to transcend anything else being produced today. Sung in “Hopelandic”, an invented part-gibberish part-Icelandic language; and arranged with an array of voices and orchestral instrumentation, Sigur Rós are an experience – taking the listeners on a journey that builds, caresses and sweeps and finally soars – taking you to the emotion rather than telling you about it. Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust (translated as With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly) is a more organic album than its four predecessors, simpler acoustic instrumentation and brighter three-minute pop songs welcome you in before you are presented with the glorious Festival, a nine minute epic whose orchestral strings, pounding drums and thumping bass provide the albums high point. While they have done this before, With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly advances the Sigur Rós canon by providing a sense of grounding, rather than washing you with sounds as they have previously, often a simple piano and voice will carry the majority of a song like the closing All Alright (sung for the first time in English!). So with their feet on the ground they continue to explore the heavens for all to see.

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