Average User Rating: 80% (21 Reviews)
4 / 5	New batteries Jonathan Birch (Cambridge) - 24 June 2008 Sigur Rós's astonishing 1999 LP, "Ã�gaetis Byrjun", was unreplicable. In the years since, they've made catchier songs and noisier songs; but nothing quite matches the otherworldly ambience of their early masterpiece. "Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust" marks a change of direction. In short, it's the first time Sigur Rós have sounded like a band, rather than a school of whales at the bottom of a fjord. The first four songs are fresh, sunkissed, acoustic, playful: you'd hardly believe it's still Sigur Rós, but it all works beautifully. The message is clear: this is a fun album, a soundtrack for summer, for festivals, for beaches, for running naked across roads. After this brilliant opening, the album loses momentum a little (in particular, "Ã�ra bátur" is overlong and overblown, with choirs and orchestras battling with the vocals for space in your ears), but it's all done with enough verve to keep your finger away from the skip button. "Með suð" is by far Sigur Rós's most accessible record, and is a fine place for newcomers to start. The bottom line is that "Með suð" is good news: the successful sonic evolution of one of the most consistently interesting bands in the world today.... Read Full Review »
5 / 5	Imagine this... Jack Ruby's Dog (Leicestershire, UK) - 9 June 2008 You're ten years old and it's Christmas morning. You haven't been greedy towards Santa this year, you've just asked for eleven presents and that is all you want. As long as you get those - even if you get nothing else - it'll make your Christmas so special. You're ten now, a tiny bit older and a tiny bit wiser, and what you've asked for is just a shade more mature than last year. So, it's 7am, so you race downstairs, pausing only to look at the gentle blizzard raging outside. You count your presents under the tree and they number eleven. The signs are good. Then you open them and to your immense delight you get exactly what you wanted, and they are all wonderful, surpassing your expectations. In fact they are all so wonderful you cannot decide which is your favourite - it's just impossible. And so to "Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust". A new Sigur Ros album is just like Christman Day, of course. But Christmas Day seldom lives up to all the expectations - sometimes the turkey doesn't defrost in time, sometimes the crackers are a bit wimpish, sometimes the Christmas Dr Who is a bit of an anti-climax. But have no fear children, this new album is like those wonderful Christmas Days you remember when you were ten years old. "Gobbledigook" begins matters in a carefree, happy-go-lucky way that bodes extremely well, and the euphoria is maintained by the tub-thumping "Inní mér syngur vitleysingur". Track 3, "Góðan daginn" is a delightful little acoustic-guitar and vocal piece (thankfully Jonsi is singing properly so far, not in Hopelandish), Track 4 "Við spilum endalaust" has you jumping once again with thumping bass and drums. Halfway it's time for a rest and "Festival" calms you right down again (unfortunately Hopelandish makes its first appearance) with five minutes of Jonsi and some etherael sounds that take you right back to "()", then Track 4 seems to invade again. From this point the album does seem to lose just a smidgeon of momentum, although "Suð í eyrum" with its crunching drum loop just manages to keep you engaged enough. "Ã�ra bátur" seems to be a re-imagined version of the previous track which is slightly confusing. Too very short tracks, "Fljótavík" and "Straumnes" follow, calming things down even further, both little vingnettes of aural beauty. To round things off we get "All alright" in which Jonsi signs in English, although he sings with such a seeming lack of enthusiam it's slightly difficult to work out what he's singing about. It's difficult to know where to place this in the Sigur Ros canon. It's certainly a progression from "Takk", and smacks more of instant gratisfaction than either "Takk" or "()". There are no forgettable tracks - ones that you instantly skip through as with those afore-mentioned albums, and every song is sturdy enough to stand on its own two feet without the other tracks having to offer support. This gives this album such strength and such solidity. So Happy Christmas! Put this down on your list, then rub it out and go out and buy it - why wait for Santa?... Read Full Review »
5 / 5	Build Your Own Paradise Mr. M. A. Reed (Somewhere, GB) - 16 June 2008 In the year Sigur Ros released their first album "Von", it sold 313 copies. Things have changed a lot in the past decade, and yet, they haven't. Their records are round and they play instruments, but that's about all they have in common with anyone. Their songs still have unique titles, their albums have unwieldy names, their artwork is still uniquely individual : the cover of this sums up the record in an instant : naked men and women running across a road, breaking with convention - not because it is an act of rebellion, but because it is what the heart feels is true. From the off, Sigur Ros have never been so accessable, and yet it is still, utterly and completely filled with the trademarks of their sound : ascending rhythms, vistas of strings, ethereal otherworldly vocals that soar and elevate, music that eschews the convention of verse / chorus / guitar solo in favour of a unfolding panorama of invention. Sure, all this flowery language is so very 1986-NME-Cocteau-Twins, but then again, about the only thing that is familiar about this record is that you can buy it in shops. Starting with the rampaging crescendo is "Inni Mer Syngur Vitleysinger" (rough transalation : "I have no idea what this means"), "Meo Suo I Eyrum..." is very possibly the greatest Sigur Ros record yet. It opens like a weird James hit single, then within 17 seconds takes an abrupt left turn into a fluffy Jesus & Mary Chain with a vast chorus. This record hints at a world yet unseen, touches upon the vast possibilities, takes the promises of other music, and leaves them all in the dust. You thought Radiohead were weird? Compared to Sigur Ros, Radiohead are Take That. The first half of the record is vibrant, uplifting, all drums and choruses and massive swathes of indistinct angels trilling in your ears. The second half is quieter, more reflective, introspective half-seen glimpses of songs, an alien lullaby, or an insomniac sunset seen from the window of a transatlantic jetliner. In fact, words are pretty much redundant to explain the intricate and unique world this record creates. Unlike any other music I've heard. Sigur Ros is immersive. It's the sound of music you hear on the stairs when two different records are playing at the same time, and you heard a new third, impossible song - and that is Sigur Ros, a world underneath your fingertips you didn't know existed. And its also the closest thing Sigur Ros have ever come to a conventional pop music : at times ("Ara Batur") it sounds like something Coldplay and Brian Eno would reject as far-too-weird. In one respect, Sigur Ros music is a blank canvas - there is no `meaning' except that we make ourselves, no interpretation but that we add. Every listener, every reader, everyone who's ever seen a film brings with them, unwitting or not, their baggage, their interpretation, their world, and creates something that is what the author intended but also, far far more than that. Sigur Ros music is impressionistic, foggy, a musical Rosharch Inkblot Test that provides the listener to create their own paradise and get lost in that forever. ... Read Full Review »
2 / 5	...and I'm a Sigur Rós fan Duncan "nicedisguise" - 16 June 2008 Before you read this review you need to know that I rate the body of work Sigur Ros has produced in the last ten years very highly. 'Ã�gætis byrjun' is one of my favourite albums of all time, with its aching, whale-song like structure and haunting sparseness building up to epic, explosions of sound. Absolutely perfect album. I liked the direction they took on '( )' even if Hopplandic sounds horribly repetitive to me (he basically sings the words "You sigh" over and over again) Takk was half a good album and half an over cooked album. Some songs were beautiful and others were a bit dull or over-produced. I saw them live for the first time on this album's tour and they were brilliant. After being slightly disappointed with Takk I was anticipating a return to form as such with their next (proper) release. Which brings us to this new album; which is honestly the most disappointing albums I have heard in a long time. After the first 3 songs (which are good but not great) it's just utterly dull. Songs take forever to get going and ultimately go nowhere. His voice is slightly jarring without the epic backing music and doesn't suit the acoustic and stripped down nature of this album. The melodies (when they are there) are uninspired and quite annoying at times. I can't blame the band for wanting to try something different and at least they haven't repeated themselves. Having said that, this release is dull throughout and just sounds lazy. Listen to it on their website before buying.... Read Full Review »
3 / 5	Summertime in Iceland William Rycroft "justwilliamsluck.blogspot.com" (London, UK) - 21 June 2008 Sigur Ros have always ploughed their own furrow, creating soundscapes imbued with the cold and unworldly atmosphere of their native Iceland. With heavy reverb and the unmistakable falsetto of lead singer 'Jonsi' Birgisson the band have always made a virtue of the slow burner, the track which seems to take an age to develop, and have since found their music used in everything from trailers for the BBC's Planet Earth series to Queer as Folk. But that kind of amorphous, post-rock comes with its own problems. How to develop? The invention of a nonsense language, Hopelandic, on 2002's enigmatically titled () led to a repetitive album of, well, nonsense and with the follow up, Takk, things seemed to be stagnating. So the cover of their new album (trans: With A Buzz In Our Ears We Play Endlessly) bodes well. Clothes discarded, with a definite summery tinge to the picture we have people streaking across a road and something tells me they didn't stop, look and listen. The fantastically titled Gobbledigook gets us under way with acoustic guitars and hand claps reminiscent of flamenco, spurred along by thumping drums. It's a vigorous start which is continued by the glorious piano led Inní mér syngur vitleysingur (Within me sings a lunatic). This track is the one illustrated best by the album's cover, filled with explosive energy and a sunshine melody, easily the best track on here. A bit of research reveals the lyrics to be 'My best friend, whatever may happen/I swallow a tear and breathe in your hair/Making a ruckus embracing, we cry/When we meet, when we kiss/Lips burning, holding hands/I see you awake, I see you naked/Inside me sings a lunatic.' Or something like that. It's followed by the beautiful Góðan daginn (Good day) which shows Birgisson's voice in all its glory. Við spilum endalaust (We Play Endlessly) actually sounds more like a conventional indie-pop song, think Polyphonic Spree, with more of that positive sounding energy. The mammoth Festival is one of those slow burners, relying on an almost hymnal vocal for its first half before a thumping bass guitar starts the build into a crescendo which finally gets there. It's at this halfway point that the album seems to lose all of that momentum and energy. The next few tracks are pretty enough but it ceases being the mould breaking album it could have been. Ã�ra bátur enlists the services of a boys choir and 67 piece orchestra but it only succeeds in highlighting the relative weakness of Birgisson's voice. Even the first foray into English lyrics isn't enough to get excited about (I want him to know/What I have done/I want him to know/It's bad). It's not a bad album but it's hard to imagine it replacing any of their others in your affection. It'll be interesting to see which tracks get picked by the advertisers.... Read Full Review »