After a decade-long silence, Sigur Rós returned in 2023 with a record that felt like a cosmic breath; gentle, vast, and deeply necessary at a time where we feel so divided into warring camps.
Their eighth studio album, 'Átta', is like the return of spring after the coldest winter, emerging from the band's longest hiatus with a kind of quiet defiance.For Georg Hólm, bassist and co-founder, the album's emergence felt inevitable. "It came out exactly how it wanted to come out," he says. "It's almost whispering these big things."
That whisper resounds with profound weight. 'Átta' may mean 'eight' in Icelandic, but the number also carries symbolic power in Norse mythology, often linked to the soul's regeneration.
While Georg hadn't consciously drawn on these mythic meanings during the album's creation, he was intrigued by the connection. "I didn't know that," he shares. "That's fantastic. I'll have to look it up."
The album does carry a spiritual resonance, as if born from elemental forces rather than studio sessions. For longtime fans, it's less a comeback than a continuation of Sigur Rós' unique ability to express the inexpressible.
Their music has always existed in a space beyond words: a language of its own. "I think you're absolutely right," Georg reflects when asked about music as communication beyond language. "It says a lot of things, but it doesn't need vowels and consonants to do it. It just brings emotions."
In this way, Sigur Rós tap into something ancient. Some neuroscientists have speculated music preceded spoken word and singing once connected us to land, sky, and each other. "Music is just frequencies moving through air," Georg muses, "but it makes you feel emotions. That's just. . . weird science. Or not even science. It's almost something you have to believe in. It makes you think that music is a kind of religion."
Where their 2013 album 'Kveikur' was dark and aggressive, 'Átta' is meditative, translucent. "It's kind of the opposite," Georg says. "It still has tension, but it expresses it inwardly."
That tension is mirrored in the world around us. 'Átta''s cover, a rainbow on fire, draws light on our cultural fracturing and the ecological devastation we're witnessing, with great white sharks recently washing up on the South Australian coastline of our unseasonably hot autumn oceans.
"A rainbow is something every man, woman, and child on Earth finds beautiful," Georg says. "Setting it on fire is the worst thing you could do, but are we destroying it?" In this context, Sigur Rós' ten-date Australian tour, which commences next week and performed with live symphony orchestras, becomes more than a concert series.
It's a gesture of unity in divided times. "This wasn't Sigur Rós and an orchestra," Georg explains. "It was the Sigur Rós Orchestra. Those two worlds were supposed to speak to each other."
This fusion of classical and ambient rock not only bridges genres but also generations, with conductor Rob Ames as their linchpin. "He speaks music," Georg says. The band has toured globally, performing with orchestras composed of everyone from seasoned pros to emerging musicians. "It's a privilege to work with them all."
Finally, they're bringing their rock orchestra collective to the Sydney Opera House, where they'll perform three sold-out shows on the iconic forecourt as part of Vivid LIVE. For a band that has always sounded like the Icelandic landscape come to life, like groaning glaciers, this venue, perched between sea and skyline, feels poetically fitting.
"Getting to play the Opera House? That's fantastic," Georg admits. "It's always a privilege to come to Australia, but this is something really special."
As we teeter between hope and crisis, Sigur Rós offer something rare: music that transcends ideology, language, and even time. In a burning world, they give us a rainbow, and maybe the pot of gold at the end: communal connection.
Sigur Ros 2025 Tour Dates
Fri 16 May - AEC Theatre (Adelaide)Sat 17 May - AEC Theatre (Adelaide)* sold out
Mon 19 May - Hamer Hall (Melbourne)* sold out
Tue 20 May - Hamer Hall (Melbourne)* sold out
Wed 21 May - Palais Theatre (Melbourne)
Fri 23 May - Vivid LIVE @ Sydney Opera House Concert Hall
Sat 24 May - Vivid LIVE @ Sydney Opera House Concert Hall
Sun 25 May - Vivid LIVE @ Sydney Opera House Concert Hall
Tue 27 May - QPAC Concert Hall (Brisbane)* sold out
Wed 28 May - Open Season @ QPAC Concert Hall (Brisbane)
