The Year Sigur Rós Got Ugly

Brennisteinn is Icelandic for sulfur—brimstone, the smell of something burning underground—and it is the most accurate title Sigur Rós ever chose. When this lead single from Kveikur arrived in early 2013, it was genuinely disorienting. The band that built glacial, orchestral beauty and sang in a language they invented had apparently decided to make something ugly on purpose. The guitars grind. The bass is a fist. Jónsi’s falsetto floats on top of it all like a ghost over a demolition site—still recognizably him, still unmistakably Sigur Rós, but darker and more abrasive than anything they had done before.

I played it twice in a row when it came out, trying to decide if I liked it. I’m still not entirely sure. But it has stayed with me in a way their prettier records haven’t, which probably says something.