It’s been seven years since Sigur Rós’ last studio album, Kveikur, and in that time the band has remained notoriously quiet. While it seemed unlikely that any of the group’s members would be producing any music amongst the worldwide lockdown, we still managed to get a new album from lead singer and guitarist Jónsi Birgisson and something of a return from the group itself. Sigur Rós’ “new album” was, in reality, an almost twenty-year-old recorded orchestral piece from a project they conceived at the height of their creative and popular success.
Odin’s Raven Magic takes its name from a piece of Norse mythology in the Edda, an ancient Icelandic poem. The story goes that Odin, upon seeing signs of impending disaster, sends his ravens to find out what’s going on, only to return empty-handed – at which point the god’s hold a giant banquet. That may sound confusing and unfortunately, this is the type of album that owes a lot to its source material. Without a thorough knowledge of Icelandic mythology or the language itself, the album loses most of its impact. Descriptions of the world freezing from pole to pole and trips to the underworld are completely lost on English speakers and really anyone unfamiliar with the legend.
Sigur Rós even employ a slew of additional artists to help carry the story. Steindór Andersen provides vocals, Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, an actual pagan priest, helped compose the work, Sculptor Páll Guðmundsson created a five octave stone marimba specifically for this performance, and the orchestra itself is made up of the Schola Cantorum of Reykjavik and L’Orchestre des Laureats du Conservatoire national de Paris. All of this gives the album the gravitas you would expect from an orchestral translation of ancient norse text but luckily, the album maintains much of its surface-level splendor despite that heavy inspiration.
The album’s real faults come from its creative end. At 70 minutes, most of the tracks fall into two different camps, those carried by Sigur Rós, and those that delve further into orchestration and icelandic motif’s. “Dvergmál” for example, is classic Sigur Rós, providing heavily melodic post-rock that swells to its inevitable cathartic conclusion. These moments are accessible and beautiful, showing just how disparate these two factions of performers are. Another standout, “Stendur æva” features the ethereal falsetto that Jónsi has made his trademark. His vocal work gives the album an emotional core, allowing the listener to get past all the chanting and orchestral roadblocks that come before and after for something singularly arresting.
Managing to get any kind of new music during the pandemic has been rewarding and die-hard Sigur Rós fans that have waited 18 years to finally hear Odin’s Raven Magic, will no doubt find something to chew on. For most casual listeners however, this project, while undeniably beautiful remains messy and unfocused. The album may benefit from more analysis and exposure to its mythology, but just like any concept album, if it can’t stand on its own without the gimmick, it may not be worthy of the extra weight.
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