Sigur Rós live in London: unparalleled majesty
Backed by the London Contemporary Orchestra, the band’s back catalogue and most recent album ‘ÁTTA’ are re-shaped in gorgeous ways
It’s ridiculous to suggest that the music of Sigur Rós needs any additional majestic heft. Across a near-30-year career, the Icelandic band have made their name on sweeping crescendos and stunning beauty informed by the natural world.
In the 2000s, they gained one of the most high-profile and least surprising music syncs of the century so far when their sky-reaching ‘Hoppípolla’ soundtracked David Attenborough’s Planet Earth, and since then have become the go-to band for big, bold and beautiful post-rock and ambient sounds.
It’s all to say that the now-trio don’t need any help when making music high on drama and feeling. For their 2025 tour though, they are collaborating with local orchestras around the world to celebrate ÁTTA as well as the 20th anniversary of beloved record Takk.
In London, for four nights at the Royal Albert Hall, they team up with the London Contemporary Orchestra and its conductor, Robert Ames, for a show that re-shapes their discography in fascinating ways.
While many orchestral shows for non-classical bands end up with formulaic string sections laid over songs that otherwise remain entirely the same – almost begging you to feel something – this show feels like the band’s material has almost been re-built from the ground up alongside Ames and his orchestra.
Highlights from the largely ambient ÁTTA see vocalist Jónsi, bassist Georg Holm and returning pianist Kjartan Sveinsson intertwine with the superb orchestra in fascinating ways. For older track ‘Sé Lest’, the brass section explode out of nowhere for a joyous, carnival-like outro that lifts the fog from the otherwise slow, steady tone of the show.
The band also use the iconic venue and accompanying musicians to dizzying, heavenly affect. For ‘Varðeldur’, at the end of the show’s first half, Jónsi leaves the stage and lets vocalist Malakai Bayoh deliver a spine-tingling solo, while the closing pair of ‘Ára bátur’ and ‘Hoppípolla’ see the use of the venue’s iconic pipe organ and stunning backing from the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School children’s choir.
While it seems almost too simple to pair Sigur Rós, an orchestra and a room like this, they make it anything but formulaic. When ‘Hoppípolla’ closes the show and the organ and children’s voices rise with Jónsi’s unparalleled voice, it truly feels like ascending.