For A Minor Reflection – ‘Heading Towards Chaos.’ (self-released/through Proper Music distribution)

‘Age ain’t nothing but a number’ as Aaliyah once sang. Well, maybe, but that still doesn’t mean that it’s not very impressive that the four men who make up For A Minor Reflection are only aged twenty and this is their second album.

Hailiing from Reykjavik, Iceland, these guys have released a sophomore album that is one of the most beautiful things to gace my ears this year. Sure people will make comparisons with Sigur Ros because they’re Icelandic and post-rock, but they also doff their caps to the likes of Godspeed You Black Emperor! and Mogwai.

Over the course of ten tracks and fifty one minutes these guys show that you don’t need vocals to keep the attention up, and more it’s the thrill of listening to what they will do next. The centrepiece of the album is ‘Sjáumst Í Virginíu’ which clocks in at fourteen and a half minutes but that shouldn’t give the impression that this descends into self-indulgence. because -no mean feat, this – it never does. Not for a single second.

Sure, we may have heard beautiful shimmering post-rock meets shoegazing before; and the fact that a band is Icelandic is no longer unusual either. What is amazing is that such a beautiful album can exist. Thank heavens it does. If this does not appear in best of lists at the end of the year, then shame on the bloggers, music press, radio staff and anyone else who considers themselves tastemakers, frankly.

****1/2

Heading Towards Chaos will be released on September 6, 2010.

For A Minor Reflection website//For a Minor Reflection myspace