The record, self-produced by the three members of Sigur Rós: Jón Þór Birgisson, Georg Holm and Orri Páll Dýrason, sees the band shifting towards a more direct, aggressive sound. Kveikur, the band’s seventh studio album, is throughout, defined by a darker, more dystopian mood than the band’s previous ventures, The album was written, recorded and released a mere year after its beautifully somnambulant predecessor, Valtari Of course, on many levels it remains definitively Sigur Rós, because that’s what it is.

Alongside the more abyssal elements of the album are songs that stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the most exquisitely melodic music the band have ever made. For a band with so many would-be emulators, it is remarkable how inimitable they remain. Kveikur is the sound of a band bonding in the strongest possible way and, in doing so, finding themselves still further out on their own.

“Brennisteinn is a monstrous song, a pummeling seven-minute cut that finds frontman Jónsi Birgisson’s vocals wafting over a heavy cacophony serrated by his bowed guitar playing.” – Rolling Stone