If music is a foreign language - which, for the sake of a mind ruined after three days on planet Glasto, let's say it is - then Sigur Ros are almost untranslatable. This is a sound so unique, emotive and tumultuous - and without the trappings of any true musical forefathers - that you cannot fail to be utterly swept away by the experience.
That Sigur Ros feel no compulsion to attempt to wrap these neo-classical swells of achingly beautiful sound in anything so manageable and limiting as the English language is equally commendable. Like Godspeed! You Black Emperor as the sun rises, rather than as the lightning strikes, the oppressive jail of the Dance Stage is soon forgotten by the weary but touched souls present.
As light rain falls like snow onto a boiling lake, calming our storming mental and physical balance, the band's Icelandic mother tongue oozes instrumentally from singer Jon Thor Birgisson, the coos, cries and rushes guiding these frequently untitled tracks like ephemeral gusts of wind.
At the close, Birgisson thrashes wildly at his guitar with a bow and the drums are kicked-over in virtually the first concession to rock'n'roll traditions. Naturally, Sigur Ros remain silent as they leave the stage. Words mean nothing in the face of this.
