Amiina - Puzzle

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When the music loving public reads something like "Icelandic string quartet" (or really, if they see the word "Icelandic") they'll more or less immediately think of those chilly post-rock world-crushers Sigur R�s. Mainly because, well, nearly every other Icelandic erm, 'rock band' adopt their sound fairly studiously. Of course that's probably more to do with the nature of Iceland than Sigur R�s' cred; if you grow up in a place as chilly though sweepingly, indisputedly gorgeous as Iceland, the music is going to reflect that.

So yes, Amiina - Sigur R�s collaborators, of course - are an Icelandic string quartet who specialize in ambient, half-sung operatic ballads, led by a number of esoteric instruments that range from doorbells to the singing saw. And yes, their second long-player Puzzle will certainly make you think of Sigur R�s, but not necessarily in a reductive way. Amiina sound like a companion piece to the work their fellow Icelandic collectives do, not direct copy cats. In fact, the band Amiina bring to mind more than anyone is Efterklang, the cloudy, Danish, post-rocking quintet who gave us this year's lovely Magic Chairs. They share the same penchant for speedy, alternating orchestral work to which the landmark open-palmed drones Agaetis Byrjun simply don't relate.

Amiina's biggest strength lies with the players. The four women who make up the quartet know their way around music the way only �ber-studious musicians do, playing with an intense rigour and rigidness that weaves their wavelengths into dense, unbreakable unisons. What Are We Waiting For stands out in particular, the song switches between swooning string languishes and plunking harmonies in a rather seducing way. On a sheer technical level, Puzzle is stunning; understanding the amount of studio time and rehearsal work it would take to make something like this happen is truly mind-boggling - and it demands a certain level of respect.

But, while Puzzle stays pretty throughout, it never really finds its niche, borrowing the same push-and-pull songwriting trait that put the rest of the Scandinavian area on the music map back around the turn of the century. It sounds natural and deft in the hands of such honed musicians, but the end result is like a record for the band members' posterity than anyone interested in listening.

The music box chimes, the taut violin stabs, the hyperactive percussion, and the easy indie pop comparisons we've heard before. It's an album that might work for the critically disarmed who just want something pretty to ease the day, but for anyone paying significant attention, there's just not enough on Puzzle to justify investing in it. As such it's a solid but annoyingly rather unnecessary album.