Jonsi - 'Go' (Parlophone) Released 05/04/10

After five studio albums with Sigur Ros and a collaboration with partner Alex Somers in 2009’s ‘Riceboy Sleeps’, ‘Go’ is Jon Thor Birgisson (Jonsi)’s attempt to finally go it alone with his debut solo album. Whether this status is permanent, however, is a moot point; though Sigur Ros are rumoured to be on indefinite hiatus, only last month Jonsi told this website that the band were merely scrapping the material they had gathered for the new album thus far, and starting again from scratch. Only time, and possibly the success of this current project, will tell.

An early airing of the new record might lead you to the conclusion that Jonsi has reached a period in his life where he has found utter contentment. Opener and first single 'Go Do', and 'Animal Arithmetic' which follows it, are two of the most chirpy, up tempo tracks that Jonsi has ever put his name to, seeming to set out firstly, the happiness in his own life, and secondly, the joy that being part of the human race brings him (Everyday, everywhere, people are so alive). And unlike the last Sigur Ros album ‘With a Buzz in Our Ears…’, where the positive start melted away into a dark, wallowing final half, on ‘Go’ there is more to come, the likes of 'Boy Lilikoi', and later on, 'Around Us', setting magical fairytales to more perky soundtracks.

Yet concerns that the album might be too relentless in its happiness turn out to be unfounded, the bludgeoning off-kilter piano of Tornado proving not only that Jonsi still has the word ‘epic’ tattooed on his heart, but also that he isn’t restricted to simple fairy story lyrics when not writing in his native language (“You grow like tornado, you grow from the inside, destroy everything”).

And there are more of these all-encompassing orchestral storms, the type of music that made Sigur Ros famous in the first place. The lyrics in the aforementioned 'Around Us' are echoed on 'Grow Till Tall' which follows it, but in a far more sweeping, spaced out composition, the two tracks like twin planets revolving around each other, one dancing and spinning lightly while the other hangs in a giant, brooding mass. The heartbreakingly positive finale of 'Hengilas', meanwhile, must be one of the finest album closers of all time.

What marks ‘Go’ out as distinctly Jonsi’s work, is its emphasis on the vocals at the forefront of the music, and the heightened sense of structure this brings, as well as the balance between up tempo and downbeat, which seems to have been weighted carefully throughout. Such is the magnitude of the work he has had a hand in, either inside or outside of Sigur Ros, it is difficult to say whether any one piece particularly stands out among the others. But if any of them can truly be said to be a masterpiece, then this one certainly can.