Agaetis Byrjun

"AURORA BOREALIS/The icy sky at night."

Neil Young's opening lines from Pocahontas could've been written to evoke the first international release by Icelandic quartet Sigur Ros.

Agaetis Byrjun is a stellar event: it sounds conceived under strange moons, in the absence of time, radiating the same wan energies one might associate with Mogwai, Spiritualized, The Cocteaus, Air, Stina Nordenstam, The Dirty Three, latter day Bjork or any of Canada's Constellation acts.

Forgive the obvious allusions, but this really is a music saturated by northern lights - electro-drones and avant jazz raptures informed by a rigourous yet fluid classical sensibility. On 'Staralfur' and 'Ny Batteri', Sigur Ros design sepulchral sound sculptures redolent of Lynch, Cruise and Badalamenti's Industrial Symphony #1, Joy Division's 'Decades' or MBV's Loveless. All the action happens underground, in a cold fusion chamber illuminated by radioactive stalagmites, where Kevin Shields, the Reid Bros and Jason Pierce all don white coats and get busy chipping Glassworks out of ice.

And if at times you might think Spacemen 3 covering Umma Gumma, this ain't no opiated rock. Sigur Ros steer clear of dark narcolepsy - instead their sound arranges vast landscapes and constructs deep space installations which strive to reflect rather than replicate nature.

Here's a work of lunar beauty. Get blissed.