Sigur Rós

Iceland's Sigur Rós are a slice of sweet calm in a manic rat race, a soothing touch that slows the passage of time. It can be hard to imagine the magnificence of their post-rock performance on record, but it only takes a few minutes of seeing them live to be fully immersed in their world. Words like sweeping, surging, mystical, cinematic, endearing, whimsical, emotive, haunting, and otherworldly all seem to fall short of their overwhelming brilliance, vividly realized with an astonishing steam-punk-ish stage set-up and added strings and horns to their core power trio. To follow their dynamic progressions from their often static opening atmospheres through their propulsive crescendos, the eyes of the storms to their tear-jerking resolutions, feels like watching God create the universe, the whole of existence flash from big bang to all the stars burning out, in one ineffable moment.