With all the recent talk about Radiohead, I had almost forgotten that other much loved indie band: Sigur Rós. This month the sweet-timbered boys from Iceland give us the release of Hvarf/Heim, a double CD compilation that apparently translates into English as something along the lines of "Disappearance/Home." The album is being released in conjunction with Heima, a DVD that documents the band's 2006 tour of their native Iceland, and with frontman Jónsi Birgisson's confirmation that the band is heading back to the studio this month to start work on a full-fledged album, there has been no lack of activity on the Sigur Rós front. Hvarf/Heim is essentially two EPs. The first, "Hvarf," is a collection of three previously unreleased songs and two reworkings of tracks off their somewhat underwhelming 1997 debut album, Von. The second, "Heim," is made up of six acoustic renditions of already released songs, including such staples as "Starálfur" and "Ágetis Byrjun." Both discs are more or less magnificent, but by this point we've come to expect as much. When dealing with a band like Sigur Rós, a band that has consistently released some of the most thoughtful, innovative and all-around beautiful music in the past decade, anything less than breathtaking is simply unacceptable.

The three previously unheard songs that start off "Hvarf" are strong enough that they would have been standouts on any normal Sigur Rós album, with the exception of "Í Ger." The highlight of the three is the second track, "Hljómalind," which has been released on a single with the acoustic version of "Starálfur" that appears on "Heim." The two, appropriately paired as "Hljómalind," evoke the subtle glory of 1999's Ágetis Byrjun more than any of the other songs.

The third track, "Í Ger," is the overt Achilles' heel of the entire effort. It starts interestingly enough with a glacial xylophone section, but the tranquility of the opening is soon shattered by eerily Pink Floydish guitar bursts that are just too abrasive and amateurish to fit in with the rest of the album. But then again, I suppose there is a reason it was never released before. "Hvarf" is rounded off by two re-recordings of songs from Von, both of which display the musical maturation Sigur Rós has undergone in the last decade. The new version of "Hafsól" is such a profound improvement over its Von counterpart that I was inspired to relisten to the entire original album in search of other prematurely dismissed gems.

If released independently, "Hvarf" would probably be a less-than-necessary purchase for anyone outside die-hard Sigurheads. It is the second disc, "Heim," that makes this set a worthy entry into the immaculate Sigur Rós discography. What's truly great about "Heim" is the intimacy of the instrumentation. Sigur Rós have taken some of their best songs and stripped down the arrangements to a form that engrosses the listener on a completely organic level, as if the band is playing right next to you. The studio versions of many Sigur Rós' songs, brilliant as they may be, can be almost overwhelming in their lush soundscapes. "Heim" takes the same great songs and presents them in a way that is warmly comforting, just like Mom's _orramatur (the national food of Iceland).

All and all, while Hvarf/Heim may not be the new album that fans have been waiting for, it's a release that will clearly leave them satisfied on a different level. The retrospective work still contains enough of that signature Sigur Rós brilliance to satiate even the most avid of fans, at least until next year.