Earlier this year, Sigur Rós hinted at the release of their first new album in a decade while unveiling a series of tour dates spanning North America, the UK, and Europe—traveling with a 41-piece orchestra. While a title and release date have yet to be revealed, the band is sharing their first new original music since their post-industrial 2016 single “Óveður” with the strikingly minimal “‘Blóðberg,” which features the London Contemporary Orchestra and which arrives today with a bleak 10-minute visual.
While the song itself only clocks in at seven minutes, the lengthy video powerfully brings it to life. Directed by Johan Renck—director of HBO’s Chernobyl, as well as slightly more upbeat music visuals for Beyoncé and Robyn—the clip shares that series’ post-apocalyptic feel as a camera steadily pans across an endless desert of dead trees and death human flesh, occasionally indistinguishable from each other. “I feel as nihilistic as one could regarding the future,” Renck shared of his video. “We are powerless against our own stupidities. Some aspects of this came to merge with my impressions of the themes of ‘Blóðberg.’ The music becoming a score to my own miserable thoughts, giving them beauty as only music can.”
Watch it below, and revisit the band’s tour itinerary here.
