A little bit of new direction for Iceland’s Sigur Ros. A more aggressive one. That might make you die-hard Sigur Ros fans a little nervous. I know I was. Yeah, operative word, “was”. After hearing the first two singles and the title track to Kveikur my nervousness evaporated. Not only is the album a bit more aggressive than previous material, there’s one less member. Kjartan Sveinsson left Sigur Ros last year after the release of Valtari to focus on movie scores and classical composition. He said he spent half his life in the band (since 1998) and it was time to do something different. Kveikur is set to be released June 17 & 18 and is now available to preorder on iTunes, which comes with an immediate download of the new single Ísjaki. Kveikur is also available to preorder from the Sigur Ros site on cd & double vinyl, with an expanded LP offer coming soon (there are now no plans for a limited deluxe edition of kveikur).
Check out the video for Ísjaki below.