From the Salmon

I used to enjoy a website named “The Shins Will Change Your Life.” Sadly, it seems to have vanished.

It was a kind of Hall of Shame for hyperbole in music review. You know, the kind of review that claims that this new band or new album is so transcendent that it will radically change reality as we know it in some dramatic fashion.

I miss that site already, because as I’ve started to write about music, it served as a good reminder of how easy it is to get caught up in a kind of dramatically escalating praise race when writing about music. It’s not enough that an album be good or even be great. It has to be the greatest thing ever, an album that will brighten your teeth or reverse the course of rivers.

I mention this because the next album that has the potential to send me into that dangerous territory is takk..., the upcoming album from Sigur Rós. The album isn’t out until September 12, but the boys from Iceland recently released “Sæglópur,” an advance track from the album, on iTunes.

I recently got an email announcing the release of “Sæglópur,” and it appears that the publicists have mercifully set the hyperbole bar so high, they’ve still given me lots of room for breathless praise:

A piano picks out a pretty riff, a glockenspiel plays an almost-not-there top-line and Jonsi’s airy vocal gently levitates above all. But then, just as you’re settled back soaking up the loveliness, the band launch an exocet missile into the middle of proceedings and, out of a clear blue sky, an intense bombardment begins.

Jonsi’s bowed guitar finds the power to instill the fear of God, while the bass and drums thunder alarmingly round your head and the piano takes on demonic overtones. Then suddenly, there is a melodic gap in the clouds and a chorus bursts forth only to be subsumed once more in the sturm und drang of this most powerful piece of music. Around the five-minute mark, however, the storm subsides for good, and open vistas of vast orchestral plains open up over the song’s last couple of minutes, suffused all about with an eerie heavenly glow.

The first time you hear this, it is a real-life hair-raising experience; your blood seems to run a little quicker and your skin goes properly prickly. There may be a tendency to feel somewhat lost for words for a few moments afterwards. In this regard, ‘Sæglópur’ may well be the purest distillation to date of the chemistry Sigur Rós have at their collective fingertips.

It is well documented that the group are eminently capable of spellbinding melodic delicacy and also bewildering towers of rock power, but never before have they been so effectively brought together in a way that leaves the listener quite so emotionally undone. ‘Sæglópur’ — as simple as its guitar, bass, drums and keys ingredients are — feels like a record of near divine inspiration.

Wow. If you say so.

I guess all that’s left is for you to download it.

If you dare.