Everything is forgotten in a bliss

Photo by Tookie All that mopey, glacial, utterly transportive music? It turns out that Sigur Rós was kidding all along. They're really party boys at heart, trading in their hallucinogens for Xanax-and-Ecstasy cocktails. At least that's what "Inní mér syngur vitleysingur" suggests, their brightest and most gleeful departure to date. It's a spaz-out jamboree, with a Top 40 drumbeat and parade-route energy. Literally translating to "In me, a lunatic sings," it's a celebration of humanity's wild-eyed heights, all the shudders and shivers of visceral pleasure. It's lucky that the band sings in Icelandic, because the English translation does come off a little hokey. It reminds me mostly of a breathless teenager scrawling in her unicorn-cover journal: "My best friend, whatever may happen/ I swallow a tear and breathe in your hair/ Causing commotion, we cry in each other's arms/ When we meet/ When we kiss/ Lips burning, holding each other's hands." And yet as delivered by Jónsi Birgisson, his delicate voice brimming with emotion, the jubilant music booming behind him, it feels genuinely inspiring. Even more to the point is when he insists, "Allt gleymist í smásmá stund," or "Everything is forgotten in a bliss," the song buoyantly ramping up toward ecstatic crescendo. * MP3: "Inní mér syngur vitleysingur" - Sigur Rós from Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust [Buy it] * Website: Sigur Rós