Ever heard Sigur Ros's music? WSJ music critic Jim Fusilli says you should. He steps up to the mic on Mean Street and talks about the success of the Icelandic band.


The release next week of "Inni" (XL Recordings), a concert documentary and live album by Sigur Rós, marks the return of one of the world's best and most compelling rock bands. It's the first step in the group's re-entry into the global rock arena.

Sigur Rós's singer-guitarist Jónsi Birgisson. The Icelandic group will release 'Inni,' a concert documentary and live album, next week. Redferns

Recorded in London in 2008, the film captures Sigur Rós's final two shows following a lengthy tour in support of "Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust," which translates roughly as "With a buzz in our ears, we play endlessly." Directed by Vincent Morisset, it's a close look at the band in concert, often mere feet away. The majority of the film is in grainy black-and-white, reinforcing the view outside Iceland of the quartet as mythic and unknowable, as if it had risen from the fog-shrouded lava fields of its island home. Its 2002 breakout album "( )" may be a somber, majestic work that can conjure images of a stoic life in the harsh climes here, but if you watch "Inni" carefully you can see its four musicians interact with humor and warmth. For all the weight of some of its finest work, Sigur Rós has made music that's brisk, sweet and a tad mischievous.

"The mythology, maybe we used it intentionally," said keyboardist-arranger Kjarri Sveinsson at the band's recording studio in Mossfellsbaer. "It is an aesthetic, but basically we're just four chaps. If you scrape away all the layers and soundscapes, our music is very simple, with some chord progressions other pop bands are using."

Though the film documents the band in all its power, none of the group liked the early cuts they saw. "We all hated it," singer-guitarist Jónsi Birgisson said. "Hate is a strong word, but yeah. I found it very bland. It didn't capture what we set out to capture."

"We wanted a microvision, the tiny details. A smile, a glance," bassist Goggi Hólm added. "We almost scrapped the whole thing."

But during the editing process, the film improved. "We had a destructive editor," Mr. Hólm said with a smile. "He mixed things up."

In the end, according to Mr. Birgisson, "we got what we wanted in the first place."

The two-CD set contains 15 songs. Several are sung in "Hopelandic," a darting, rhythmic language the band invented that wavers between nonsense words and scat singing. Almost all the other songs are sung in Icelandic. "Most people don't know what we're talking about," drummer Orri Dýrason said. They communicate to all through their intense, lucid rock, be it a tender folk tune or a grand symphonic ballad.

After the 2008 shows were completed, the band went on what they thought would be a brief hiatus. But then the wives of Messrs. Dýrason, Hólm and Sveinsson had children and the men decided to stay home with their families. Mr. Birgisson, working under his first name, released a delightful solo album, "Go," and went on a lengthy world tour to support it. When the "Go" tour ended, Mr. Birgisson said, "it was like coming home to see the guys again. It felt natural."



"We've never been gimmicked into keeping our sound similar to what we did last," Mr. Sveinsson said. "It's very easy for musicians to buy into that idea. It's so unnecessary."

From the start, Mr. Sveinsson added, "we were mainly interested in what we were doing. We knew it was special. It's never theoretical with us. It's just 'go do.' When you're doing it, you think: 'This is really good.' But it doesn't go further than that."
