Val­tari, the new album from Sig­ur Rós is some­thing of a back to basics affair. Their last two, Takk in 2005 and With A Buzz in Our Ears We Play End­less­ly in 2008 were clear­ly an attempt by them to move in a slight­ly more con­ven­tion­al direc­tion by pro­duc­ing col­lec­tions of what were more rec­og­niz­ably songs.

Val­tari, their sixth in the stu­dio, sees them return to the ter­ri­to­ry mapped out by 2002’s ‘( )’ and the work they’d been pro­duc­ing beforehand.

For some, this has proved to be some­thing of an ever so gen­tle let down. The boys from Prav­da at Pitch­fork gave it a sulky 6.1 here, bemoan­ing what some see as a regression.

But Sig­ur Rós were nev­er about songs. Like Bri­an and Roger Eno or The Pen­guin Café Orches­tra before them, their focus has always been on con­jur­ing up atmos­pheres and evok­ing land­scapes through the tac­tile tex­tur­ing of sounds.

Hence Jon­si’s use of Hopelandic, the hotch­potch of vow­els he uses to lace so many of their “songs” with. The mean­ing isn’t to be found in any com­bi­na­tion of words or thoughts, but in the feel­ings aroused as the sounds of the “words” com­bine with the lay­ers laid down in the music.

And nei­ther is it real­ly fair to accuse them of fail­ing to evolve. Yes a lot of the ambi­ent sounds pro­duced here are rem­i­nis­cent of those ear­li­er albums. But there’s much more of a post-punk feel to a lot of what’s gong on in the back­ground now.

The melodies, though as ethe­re­al as ever when they do rise, are more like­ly now to be off­set by waves of dis­so­nance, albethey of the gen­tle variety.

They’ve made a num­ber of videos to accom­pa­ny the album. This one, for track 3 “Varuo” here is a lit­tle bit under­whelm­ing video wise. But curi­ous­ly it some­how grows on you. And it’s the near­est thing on the album to the sort of con­ven­tion­al song from their more recent period.

The oth­er for Fjogur Piano here, the 8^th and final track is much more rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the album musi­cal­ly speak­ing, even if video wise, it’s just a lit­tle bit busy. There’s so much going on, that noth­ing much hap­pens. But you do get to see Shia Lebeouf’s impres­sive torso.

Though not per­son­al­ly respon­si­ble, he was part of the gang indict­ed for so bru­tal­ly rap­ing poor old Indie in the lam­en­ta­ble fourth out­ing of Indi­ana Jones. You can catch a glimpse of the cul­prits caught here on cam­era by the good peo­ple from South Park. And if you haven’t seen the full episode 8 from series 12, do so now. It’ll bring tears to your eyes.

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