Live Review: Sigur Ros

Absence only makes the heart grow fonder. In the case of Icelandic band Sigur Ros, the last five years in Melbourne have tested even the stoutest of hearts among their solid, passionate fanbase. We pined while watching the band's ethereal soundscapes grace nearly every darling indie movie and cultish network TV series in the intervening years. But tonight we are justly rewarded by a one-off stripped-back sideshow post-Splendour In The Grass - billed as an intimate, transcendental experience with the three band members alone on stage sans their usual backing band.

Standing amid a forest of slender LED-illuminated posts arranged in long perspective lines, and abstract crucifixes, lead vocalist and guitarist Jon Thor "Jonsi" Birgisson, bass guitarist Georg "Goggi" Holm and percussionist/keyboardist Orri Pall Dyrason certainly immerse the audience in an otherworldly spectacle. With their signature meditative, minimalist compositions and drawn-out chords that often build up rapidly towards an insane crescendo of apocalyptic proportions, the band directs an aesthetic soundtrack to craft every imaginable human emotion and test the boundaries of our comfort. Reinvigorating old favourites from their extensive catalogue, they assault our aural and visual senses with heart-stopping flashes of pure, bright white light and disorient us by pumping the smoke machines into overdrive.

With the aid of a discreet, foot-pedal loop machine and the accompaniment of his trusty bowed guitar, Birgisson's famed falsetto vocals nudge the stratosphere of the arena in a garble of Haiku-like spoken word and emphatic wails. Alternatively tender and innocently yearning - especially during E-Bow, Fljotavi­k, Vaka and Saeglopur - Sigor Ros also channel unbridled despair and anguish. In war-anthems such as Oveour, Kveikur and Popplagio, Birgisson's vocals are the only element of humanity in an otherwise solid soundscape that indulges and explores the band's experimental post-rock style.

The trio up there alone - with impressive lighting design the unofficial fourth member - more than adequately plunge the whole arena in a deliberately gothic, medieval dimension. Theatrical themes of gore, battle and violence are somehow prominent even when we are still debating whether Birgisson sings in English or Icelandic. Had their backing band joined them, adding rich layers of brass and strings, it would definitely have hiked the ethereal factor up by a few dozen notches. Although this arena is relatively modest in size, some of the band's more subtle nuances - especially Birgisson's vocals - are, unfortunately, acoustically compromised.

Despite pleas, there are no encores tonight; just a double stage bow. Wordlessly, the band gesture their appreciation through claps and smiles, and leave us with a political message in the form of a multi-coloured map of Australia projected on screen with the word "Equality" emblazoned across it. Less is definitely more.