Sigur Rós present themselves as something of an oddity enclaved in the world of post-rock - a style of music fixated around the exploration of texture and timbre, and using slow drones and ambience to create movements that seem larger than life - thanks in part to the unique instrumentation that is brought into their musical glass dome. These sounds help to evoke the picturesque sonic landscapes reminiscent of their home country, a subtle use of psychogeography that brings its audience into a setting so familiar to them, they could give you a guided tour. One can feel the punch of the Floydian organ keys on a cut like “Hjartað hamast (bamm bamm bamm)”, or the roar of their signature cello bow that first turns up on a nurtured 10-minute venture - “Svefn-g-Englar”. Here, they take an excursion through one of the most common and vital processes in nature, but from a refreshing angle.

Looming over the four liquid organ chords, a single tone drips on every beat, rippling on the surface as we are introduced to the first setting that takes place in Sigur Rós’ newly-bred world. Clouded in reverb, the whole thing moves at a glacial, lumbering pace, waiting in anticipation for the goliath bowed guitar to erupt. But when it does, the thunderous noise generated doesn’t terrorise the listener. Instead, it provokes a sense of something monumental being added to the world, a new dawn.

Focus then turns to the vocals, another rarity for post-rock. Boyish and placating, frontman Jónsi’s crooning is engulfed in the mix, as though what the band have created is larger than them, enough to swallow them whole. Entwining with the soundtrack, he sings about the journey of childbirth from the perspective of the newborn. His soft falsetto - a constant throughout the LP - breathes warmth into the frosty atmosphere as he repeats a phonic used by Icelanders to comfort infants (“Tjú!”). Simple yet bold descriptions are used to paint a graphic outline image, similar to the pen-drawn cover art: “I float in liquid hibernation”. Throughout Ágætis byrjun, the band show how they can disperse an ocean of feeling with a small drop of detail.

Several other folkloric stories are glazed in a dark overtone, such as a first-hand tale of a person building a ship and struggling to stay afloat as they catch flies down a river, (“Flugufrelsarinn”), or the accounts of someone being beaten into submission by an unnamed regime (“Ný batterí”). This record has a dark side, and though the lyrics are in the native tongue, one does not need to be fluent to sense the change in mood through the gloomy, drawn-out chords that underpin the theatrics.

Despite breaking the traditions of post-rock by using unfamiliar sounds and vocals in a typically-instrumental genre, Sigur Rós do still use some of the commandments that defines this brand of rock music. First and foremost, these songs often take the scenic route to reach their endpoint rather than striving for compactness, which allows the audience enough time to bask in the aural geology the band construct. Moreover, the vocals serve a compositional purpose as well as a storytelling medium, they can be left alone to become a part of the instrumentation as though it were a guitar lead in an “Explosions in the Sky” record. “Olsen Olsen” is indicative of this; a song that sees Jónsi using a self-made language known as “Vonlenska” (or “Hopelandic”). Beside him is a rootsy guitar line, one of the most overt references to mainline rock on the project, and backing him is a regal choral section, congregating what feels like a royal celebration. It’s a beautiful moment of glossolalia that calls back to Elizabeth Fraser’s or Clare Tory’s heavenly gibberish, and would be employed more earnestly on the group’s incredibly minimal following album, ().

The track dispels into the cold Iceland wind, leaving a sole flute that once intersected the main tune, but this time, it finds itself drifting away to feed into the succeeding song. Some of the most curious aspects of this album are these transitionary interludes that purposely take the audience outside of the crafted biosphere, due to how strongly they oppose the majesty of the central environment. Songs are conjoined by strange electronic squinching that is buried and muffled to the point of instilling a musical xenophobia, the fear of the unknown. It’s like finding and peeking under the rotting belly of the album, yet seeing the process of metamorphosis in action, right from the ugly beginnings, highlights how Sigur Rós rise above the many post-rock bands that create the type of formless scapes that doomed the genre to eternal stagnation.

Jónsi and co. seemed to be aware of this stagnation coming into what is their second effort. Craving a fresh starting point, they attempt to atone for their debut, Von, with the titling of Ágætis byrjun: Icelandic for “a good beginning”. The title track lends further detail into the events that conceived this body of work, with an autobiographical depiction of the wider and insular reaction to Von. Growing disheartened at the 300 copies sold in their home territory (“it seems like no-one's listening”), they agreed to “do better next time”, and a distant dream was born. By the time the quartet was ready to unveil their new creation, their ambitions had upgraded substantially, in a now-infamous website excerpt that read: