Sigur Ros - Takk

Sigur Ros is a mysterious band to say the least. Inventing their own language and their own musical style, they have become indie darlings and are honored the world over for producing some of the most beautiful music around. This time around, they actually use a real language on their disc, but unless you speak Icelandic, for all intents and purposes, this is really an instrumental album. Somehow instrumental seems fitting though because music this beautiful really can’t be described in words anyway. It’s pointless to talk about this album on a track by track basis because it is truly an album that ebbs and flows back and forth as a singular unit rather than dividing itself up into easily digestible pieces. The beauty of the album is apparent within the first five minutes. Close your eyes and listen and you are taken away to heaven. Where the album really shows its genius and quality is in its ability to maintain your attention and straddle the line of beautiful dream and restful sleep. Most albums that are this relaxing go to the point where you literally fall asleep or figuratively doze off so much that the album bores you and disappears into the ether, but not this album. The building crescendos and sweeping valleys keep your ear finely tuned into every note as wall after wall of sound is build up and torn down right before your eyes. Simply put, if you can listen to Takk and not float away relaxed, I am not sure I want to know you. Album after album, year after year, Sigur Ros put out some of the most beautiful music in recent memory. Having only gotten stronger, a lot of people would argue this is their best effort to date, and I would be hard pressed to refute that. This is a must own album of 2005 and a perfect centerpiece display of just how beautiful and other worldly superbly made music can be. [www.sigur-ros.is]