Sigur Ros "Kveikur" [2013]

Imagine hallucinating from being stuck on an iceberg for a month by yourself and you'll get a pretty good idea what you're in for here. Sounding like the elfin love children of Cocteau Twins and... I dunno, those German weirdos from Can or something, Sigur Ros takes pains to turn the word "ambient" into an insult. Of course they're from Iceland -- what self-respecting Westerner from any real country would try to break into the music business recording the aural equivalent of melting icicles? Thing is, these guys had already been around awhile before "Kveikur" (whatever in the fucking hell that means) came out, updating the Deep Forest-style soundtrack at that crystals-and-incense bookstore you only go into last-minute when you forgot to buy a Christmas present for somebody. There's so much echo and unnecessary noise in between the female-registered guy singer Jonsi Birgisson's utterly indecipherable flights out of the stratosphere that it's next to impossible to hear Milton Nascimento telling this guy to grow a pair of balls. It's apparent Sigur Ros is interested in illustrating what music would be like in heaven (or at least Coldplay's version of it), but isn't pretending to be in heaven when you're still alive the kind of creepy thing that Mormons usually do?