A while ago, conservative columnist (and classical music critic) Jay Nordlinger decried pop music as an unqualified evil. I responded by musing about whether he had heard "pop" acts like Icelandic legends Sigur Rós, for all the artistry they put into their music surely disqualifies them from the label "trash."

And indeed it is pop music. Any band who is signed to Geffen Records is pop, at least in the most general sense of the term. They have the resources available to reach a huge audience, compared to their previous label. But Sigur Rós has never been the traditional pop group.

For one, their first album, Von (initially released only in Iceland), was a dark and adventurous sprawl of sonic experimentation. They followed up two years later in 1999 with the string-laden Ágætis Byrjun, which built on the success of Von and added sweeping strings, tighter arrangements, and a mournful, epic mood to their 10-minute compositions. Three years would pass until in late 2002 they released the pretentiously-titled ( ), which continued the same sound of Ágætis Byrjun, only with pseudo-art packaging, like a complete lack of track titles.

In all, it was an impressive resumé for a band with only three albums to its name. But by the time ( ) came around, a lot of critics were wondering whether Sigur Rós could progress any further. It was their first major-label release in the Unitedf States (on MCA), yet it represented no major growth--really, just a tightening of sound, and a deliberate attempt to break it up into two parts (a-side and b-side?) with a 30-second silence at the tail end of "Untitled 4."

Que another three year wait and a worldwide, sold-out tour.

Sigur Rós has once again hit these hallowed shores with a new album, Takk. "Thanks" in Icelandic, Takk is not at all what it should have been. It grows the Sigur Rós sound in all the right ways, it tightens most of the songs into reasonable pop-album lengths (in a seeming first, the majority of the tracks are under 8 minutes), and the band is much more direct in "getting to the point."

A good example is "Sæglópur." A mere two minutes into the song, the delicate, plinking piano and various chimes and clicks and pretty falsetto squeaking suddenly explode into the expected wailing noise of a Sigur Rós climax. As the piano begins genuinely banging, the full brunt of the song hits you in the face for the next three minutes. Then a calm down, a new movement, as that familiar languid wind down finally runs its course. Total elapsed time: 7:38. Two albums before, it would have been over 11:00. This is an unqualified improvement.