TAKK...

Some of you are probably glad that because this is a near-instrumental album, I won't be rambling on quite as much as usual. Anyway, the great news about Takk... is that while there are still a lot of the same noises heard in their unfortunate EP release Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do, there's much more to hold this together, and a faster beat than ( ) (which seems dead in many places) at most times. This is closer to their masterpiece Agaetis Byrjun in spirit, and more accessible. In fact, some of the instruments that made Agaetis Byrjun so great reappear on Takk, such as the horns on "Hoppípola"/"Með Blóðnasir" and the strings of "Sé Lest". Even though "Sé Lest" also has some of the strange background noises from BBTKDD, SIGUR ROS seems to understand this time that's not enough to have an actual song.

Some of the lyrics are in Icelandic, and others are still in Hopelandic, but there's far, far less of a feeling of obscurity for obscurity's sake. What's also interesting is to look up translations to the lyrics. I was surprised to find that unlike some of their more depressing compositions, "Saeglópur" actually had happy lyrics, which succinctly tells the story of a sailor thought dead being found and rescued. Not all of them are that way, when I looked on websites for the translations, but even one is an unusual thing from SIGUR ROS. Some of the compositions seem to flow together as if they were a single entity, like "Takk"/"Glósóli" and "Hoppípola"/"Með Blóðnasir", so don't let a few short track times fool you--these are fully-developed songs.

SIGUR ROS does break new ground on this album, most particularly on "Saeglópur", "Gong", and some on "Svo Hjlótt", where we get an unheard-of, fast-paced drumming style that avoids letting songs linger like they did on ( ). I'm certainly not talking about metal-style drumming (though on Track 8 of ( ) they got close once), but something a little more like old "Myrkur" on Von--though at much better quality. And even the old reliable SIGUR ROS pieces like "Mílanó" and "Andvari" are up to speed.

The one drawback to this whole album is the distorted quality to some of the instruments (drums and piano in particular) that makes the production quite a bit less impressive than on Agaetis Byrjun. Also, there are times when I feel like the end to "Andvari" drags a bit, but it depends on my mood. However, the songwriting is up to par--and furthermore, is actually happy for the most part. One wonders if the title (Icelandic for "Thank you") is SIGUR ROS' way of saying, "Thank you for bearing with us" through the doldrums of BBTKDD and ( ). Overall, a 4.5, and if not for the distracting sound-quality issues, this would be the equal of Agaetis Byrjun.