| Von | 1997 |
| Recycle Bin | 1998 |
| Ágætis Byrjun | 1999 |
| ( ) | 2002 |
On the surface, Sigur Rós are one of the main mysteries of the so-called 'post rock' scene (what that term means at all, I'm not sure). Their music is of a slow, huge-sounding, and repetitive dirge-like character that's supposed to recall the atmosphere of their home country of Iceland, some cold place where, on the estimate, about 28 people live. Their frontman, Jon Thor (Jonsí) Birgisson, sings in an incredibly high voice that often makes it hard to tell to unsuspecting listeners whether it's a male or female singing, and he frequently runs a bow over his guitar strings as a key element to their huge sound. Plus their lyrics are sung for the most part in Icelandic, but on occasion (most notably their latest unpronounceable ( ) album in its' entirety), they're sung in a fictional language called Hopelandic, either way rendering them indecipherable to the average listener, of course. Not to mention that, once they get their hands on a musical theme they think is absolutely gorgeous (and often it is), many times they'll just milk it to death for an average of 8 or 9 minutes.
Needless to say, a band like this isn't for everyone. Some find in their music unbelievably orgasmic heavenly bliss, and yet some others find incredibly obnoxious and pretentious boredom (not just due to the song structures and slow tempos, but also the unnerving vocal style), and listening to their three studio albums, I've been on both side of the fence before. They're just as capable of creating some of the most gorgeous music ever heard as they are of creating some of the most aimless, non-musical and pointlessly repetitive, and while Ágætis Byrjun, their breakthrough record outside of Iceland, alone justifies all the acclaim they've gotten as 'saviors of modern music' and then some (mostly because there's interesting things going on in the music in addition to the gorgeous melodies they come up with - actually, trust me on this one... it's one of the best albums ever recorded, period), their other two albums fit my hit-and-miss description as frustratingly as any band I've ever experienced. But they also have a great way of combining all these different neat elements in sounding like no else, and that's pretty special. Now on to the reviews for my take on their history.
P.S. By the way, If you're wondering about how I got those cool-looking characters to display on the screen, I'm not that good at HTML. It's just the magic of cut-and-paste from other sites working wonders.
--Nick Karn
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: Von, Myrkur. LOW POINTS: Hafssól
If you're one of those people who's been blown away by the brilliance of Ágætis Byrjun and are curious to hear the beginnings of Sigur Rós, good luck getting yourself an actual audio CD copy of this album if you're not an Icelander. Of course, I was able to download MP3's of the entire album on Kazaa relatively easily, but for you non-downloading types, don't expect to find this at your local Tower Records. But in any case, this is an extremely unconventional album for a debut - out of the twelve tracks on here, maybe only four of them can be called real 'songs', with the rest of them being drawn out hardcore ambient soundscapes, sound effect experiments that aren't really geared towards close listening, or umm...18 seconds of silence (yeah, that's such incredible genius, really) In addition, the vocals (with one exception) are sung in frequently wordless choir-style harmonies, and instead of the gorgeousness that would characterize the next two albums, the sound on here leans much more toward dark, creepy and soundtrack-ish territory.
Okay, it's certainly not a substantial album at all, but at least there are some signs of promise, even in the experimental tracks. Take the opening completely atmospheric "Sigur Rós". Obviously, nearly 10 minutes is much too long for what essentially amounts to just 'haunted house' noise, but if you have it on in the background without paying that much attention to it, the droning textures and background screaming off in the distance (both of which gradually get louder as it goes on) are really effective. As is about half of the following "Dögun" with the first signs of 'choir' vocals backed by a sparse violin arrangement that perfectly captures an atmosphere of 'dawn' (until it turns into a pointless collage of rain noises and people talking unintelligibly for more than half the time, that is). To a certain extent, the 'interlude repeated ambient noise loop' tracks work, even if taken out of the album's overall flow, they're completely useless.
The excellent flow is probably Von's biggest strength, actually - the first five tracks in particular run together perfectly. I can't imagine the 'distorted bass and guitar feedback meets choir vocals' rocker "Hún Jörð..." not coming right out of the ending rainstorm of "Dögun", and this almost enhances the song in my mind (that and the ending really makes it cool, with its' twisted laughing and screaming over the loud musical backing before it ends up in a tape loop mess). And the first and best 'noise' track "Leit Að Lífi" is an effective way to calm down from that chaos before heading to the uptempo "Myrkur", which is actually a minor highlight. I love that dreamy guitar tone (sounds like My Bloody Valentine or someone in that vein) and the way it interplays with the bassline and again, the 'choir'-styled vocals throwing out the best melody of the album, evokes quite the opposite of its' intended "Darkness" title.
Even better, though, is the title track, the first instance of Jon singing in his 'Hopelandic' gibberish language - the key word being 'singing', as it's the only song here not to feature the 'choir' vocals. It's also the most stripped-down of all, featuring acoustic guitar and bongos prominently, and despite me not understanding a damn thing he's saying, the emotion vocals and melody are really strong enough to make a powerful impact. The final 'song' "Syndir Guðs (Opinberun Frelsarans)" isn't as good, as it suffers from being too drawn out and overlong at 7-1/2 minutes, but it does have a cool bassline that can be called an older brother to "Olsen Olsen" from the next album, and the whispered spoken vocals over more, you guessed it, choir vocals, achieve a creepy effect.
Unfortunately, as decent as the four main 'songs' are and as effective as the experimental stuff is in serving its' background purpose only, any slim chance of a 7 for this album is crushed with the longest piece (I refuse to call it a song). Why "Hafssól" has the nerve to go on for 12-1/2 damn minutes with nothing but an incredibly unimpressive two note bassline, tuneless sound effects/guitar noise and no vocal melody to speak of, I'll never understand, and I want every minute of it back. Seriously, it's one of the most boring things I've ever heard, and if the album wasn't over an hour long, I'd be tempted to downgrade the rating even more because of it. Several of the others besides that one have grown on me, which ensures the rating is even this high (and a 6 is probably a generous rating for an album like this), but I have to wonder how they managed to pull off the insane leap forward that followed.
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: Viõrar Vel Til Loftárasa, Flugufrelsarinn, Starálfur, Ný Batterí, Hjartaõ Hamast (Bamm Bamm Bamm), Olsen Olsen. LOW POINTS: None.
Listening to Sigur Rós' breakthrough album, the one that made them huge critical favorites and gained them quite a bit of publicity outside of their home country (they even toured with Radiohead, and that's a pretty damn good way to gain exposure), I'm still trying to figure out how they could have made such an unbelievable progression from Von in unleashing seemingly all their potential for greatness that only seemed minimal before at best - in the process creating one of the most stunningly evocative, gorgeous, depressing, enigmatic, majestic, and epic albums ever recorded. I suppose the simple answer would be that they actually started to concentrate more on writing songs, not just background noise. Not only that, they also decided to support these songs with several different things - a new keyboard player (Kjartan Sveinsson, who also conceives horn and string arrangements), more prominence to the 'scraping the heavens' guitar sound, the sudden emergence of one of the most spectacular vocalists in modern music, and several other embellishments throughout, all playing a critical role.
I know the band hates the cliché of these songs evoking people's perceptions of the huge landscapes of Iceland, but the songs of Ágætis Byrjun really evoke majestic visions of places like this to me like no other album I've ever heard. Sure, the lyrics being sung in Icelandic helps that perception too, but more so the music. Anyway, to give you an idea of how great this album is, its' most popular song "Svefn-G-Englar" (most remembered from the soundtrack to Vanilla Sky, and it's got perhaps the band's most famous hook where Jon sounds like he's singing 'it's youuuuuuuuuu, yeah...' in the chorus) is actually one of the least impressive to me, and that's a high compliment right there. It's definitely the most appropriate way to open up the album after that backwards masked "Intro" track in showcasing their mysterious sound - who could resist that truly majestic chord progression, the cool PING sound from the keys, absolutely glorious guitar fireworks, and hauntingly sung vocal melody? It's a little too drawn out and lacking in power compared to the rest of the tracks, and that techno ending in the last minute is a little inappropriately tacked-on, but those are very, very minor complaints.
The stretch of the next six epics following that one (all within the 6 to 10 minute range, so you'll be able to enjoy them for awhile) is where the real overwhelmingly brilliant stuff lies, and they're worthy of going track-by-track from this point on, especially since their reasons for greatness are all different. The string arrangements that drive "Starálfur" are some of the most spectacular in existence, just about defining the word 'breathtaking' as they beautifully weave gorgeous parts around the main vocal melody, and that's not the only great thing this song has going for it, either. That uplifting keyboard pattern that gets played in between the vocal parts is an essential, heavenly feature that builds on its' momentum, and the way the music behind the vocals drops out, leaving Jon with just his voice and a thin-sounding acoustic guitar is an indescribably brilliant, cold change of pace.
Following that is "Flugufrelsarinn", which leaves me wondering one thing - where the heck were they hiding vocal melodies of this high caliber while they were dicking around with atmosphere on Von? I have no idea, but the melody on here is one of the most powerful and unforgettable hooks that I've heard come out of the end of the 21st century, with Jon really using the full range of his voice as he belts whatever the hell he's singing out with incredible conviction (it's about freeing flies over a cliff or something like that). The song is often very sparse and bass-driven, but still manages to sound incredibly majestic enough that you may not even notice it's built on a really basic chord progression, and that's the mark of a lot of great emotional music. Oh, and also listen for what may be the greatest, most spine-chilling instance of the 'vocal seamlessly melts into guitar feedback' trick that I've ever heard.
Ending the first half, meanwhile, is probably the 'depressing' climax of the album in "Ný Batterí" - while "Starálfur" had one of the greatest string arrangements in the history of man, this one has one of the most brilliantly creative horn arrangements ever. I love the way they make their presence known with a frightening buildup, and the way they're blended seamlessly with yet another brilliantly moody bassline and vocal melody creates this overwhelming feeling of despair and confusion, and they add all kinds of uneasy textures into the mix that reveal themselves more on repeated listening. This is especially true when they start to go all haywire near the end, by which time a slow and simple but crushing drum pattern has also started pounding its' way into your skull. The drum sound is another aspect of this album I love, by the way - those patterns are never really involved, given the slowness of the music, but they just sound so cool.
After all the slow tempos and such, the second half begins with "Hjartaõ Hamast (Bamm Bamm Bamm)", and led by a wonderfully bouncy (though not exactly happy) seven-note organ pattern, the band actually comes dangerously close to (gasp) rocking out. They never do of course, since they're Sigur Rós The Lethargic Icelanders, but they fully make up for this by making it the most layered and chaotic track on the album, and that's a plus in itself. The organ pattern also blends in with harmonica, more of that great guitar noise and string, plus the rhythm section, all of them going on at the same time - then it all goes away leaving near-whispered vocals that really creep me out. And the chorus where Jon's yelling out 'LEITA!!!! ÁGÆTIS BYRJUN!!!!!' over pretty much just white noise is an insanely climactic moment. I just love how songs like these just toy with your emotions like that, even when the lyrics are still unintelligible.
And to think, this album still hasn't gotten to what I think is the masterpiece (though your opinion may vary) - that would be the other 10 minute monster, "Viõrar Vel Til Loftárasa". The first minute is pretty much just introductory noise, yeah, but the other 9 minutes make up something incredibly high on my list of 'most perfect songs I've ever heard'. It starts off from a simple but genius 'why didn't I think of that?' piano theme that keeps on on building (adding those gorgeous strings that always come not far from choking me up, almost country-ish guitar flourishes, subtle basslines, and later on the huge guitar noise that I love, love, love to death) until it comes to a jawdropping orgasm imitating climax near the end with the interplay between the strings and guitar noise that subsequently just stops. It's probably the most evocative track on the album for me, which is saying a whole bunch, as it puts imagery of flying high over some ridiculously panoramic valley that only exists in some fantasy world right in my head.
Finally, the last of the orgasmic tracks is "Olsen Olsen", which, like the title track from the last album, is sung entirely in Hopelandic gibberish, this in a much more effective fashion than that goddamn 'you sat along the fire, don't yoooou.... blah blah repeat 200 times with minor variations' parentheses album. It's probably the pinnacle of Jon sounding all extremely high and enigmatic in his delivery during the verses (more than any other song, this one would probably invite 'whoa, who is that chick singing?' questions to the normal listeners), and brilliantly at that, plus that rumbling bassline underpinning it really gets me into a trance. Even better, in the second half of the song, an unbelievably joyful instrumental melody shows itself, first on a flute, then piano, and later on an entire choir starts singing it, with the horns joining in for a glorious singalong coda to end all glorious singalong codas before it 'fades' out with people talking, the whole mood almost sounding like you're enjoying yourself at a party.
The final two songs, unfortunately, are a letdown from the rest, but that doesn't mean they aren't really good, too. The title track, in fact, strikes me as an essential part of the album - a lullaby that has a simple acoustic, piano and soft vocal folkish arrangement to relax to, something like the flight back home from a long and overwhelmingly satisfying vacation (i.e. the previous epics). It's quite pretty, just not quite developed or epic enough to deserve all of its' almost 8 minute length (though thinking about where exactly I'd cut it off at, I really couldn't decide). As far as the closing "Avalon" goes, it's not really anything special, but I do really like the mood to it. It's based on the simple gimmick of slowing down a minute long snippet of the string arrangement in "Starálfur" by 400%, but doing so actually creates a completely different sounding 4 minute piece out of it - like the orchestral equivalent of a dark nightmare world that seems foreboding and uncertain, and it's interesting.
And there's the album - almost 72 minutes of nearly flawless evocative beauty and majesty with a unique style unlike like anything else I've ever heard, and proof that lyrics themselves don't mean anywhere near as the way they're sung (though I've found English translations of them online, and I have to say several of them are really intriguing, often somewhat dark and violent). If not for the more mortal last two songs and the small moments where musical development is lacking, this could make it even further up my list of favorites. As it stands, it's still easily one of the best achievements of the 90's, and probably the best album I've heard come out of the last five years at least. Too bad they largely regressed from the developments here right afterward.
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: Track 8 (Pop Song), Track 1 (Vaka), Track 3 (Samskeyti). LOW POINTS: Track 7 (Death Song).
Despite the success of Ágætis Byrjun, the band apparently felt they had overdone the 'add all sorts of embellishments to the mix' aspect of that album, so they decided to go in a much more stripped-down direction when it came time to record their followup, consisting of pieces that they had very frequently been playing live the previous two years. Just about everything surrounding this effort is extremely minimalist, starting off with the packaging - there are no song titles or any information listed (though the band did later make them known), the album title is merely a pair of parentheses, and the band even suggested that the spare liner notes can be used for fans to write in their own interpretations of the lyrics and draw pictures. On top of that, there aren't even any lyrics, as this time the entire album is sung in Hopelandic, and not in a really varied way either. There's tons of repeated minor variations of what sounds like the English equivalent of 'you sat along the fire', 'you sigh', 'don't you', and other very similar-sounding phrases that often gets a little grating and obnoxious.
What seems like an incredibly pretentious idea also extends to the actual songs, and that's where I can totally understand anyone being bored to tears by it. See, compounding the repetitiveness of the 'lyrics', the band mostly takes one or maybe two instrumental themes they think are really emotional, and proceeds to repeat them and over and over for a ridiculous amount of time (6 to 12 minutes), with very little else going on in the background. Most of the time, the tempos are still extremely slow, and the vocal hooks generally just aren't the powerful quality they were on Agætis. Needless to say, it's no wonder I can see people getting bored and annoyed out of their minds with stuff like this, and I'll admit it even bores me on occasion, especially on the seventh track "Death Song", the most severe case of unbearable repetition. There's nothing really wrong with its' actual theme, as it is quite despairing and powerful, but stretching it out to 13 minutes when it barely even has the nerve to go on for 4 or 5 is just infuriating.
However, while I definitely won't deny this album is a step down, there are still quite a few stretches where it's powerful beyond imagination, if lacking as far as musical ideas go. I dunno - people say ( ) is a 'headphones' album, but it was only after I started playing it loud on the stereo that it really made more impact on me. The best example of this is the third track ("Samskeyti"), an instrumental piece based on a repeating piano theme that might be even more gorgeous than the one on "Viõrar Vel Til Loftárasa". At first dragging out a small idea like that without much variation, no matter how beautiful, for 6-1/2 minutes seemed unnecessary - but letting the whole gorgeous atmosphere sink in, feeling that bagpipe-sounding keyboard in the background gradually get louder, when it comes to the climax and the piano line goes up an octave... the whole mood just gives me chills like few pieces of music can, and remind me how mindblowing this band can be when they want to.
Actually, when adjusting to the repetition and the way ( ) plays out almost like a 'hardcore ambient' song cycle, the stretch of the first four tracks (which the band considers a 'lighter half') is incredibly effective. The first track, dubbed "Vaka" after new drummer Orri's newborn daughter, has one of the most unbelievably effective mournful keyboard/piano parts in existence, and it also subtly builds up well on further listening after not sounding like much before. It also helps that the vocal melody here is perhaps the strongest (probably partly because the Hopelandic phrasing hasn't yet gotten tiring), and it's got some warped sounding experimentation with vocal effects that give it a really disturbing mood. Its' followup track ("Fyrsta") has a Radiohead influence showing itself much more prominently than anything before, though that slow and hopeless guitar line is about as emotionally devastating as anything the 'Head has come up with, not to mention Jon's vocal wailings are on par with and maybe even totally surpassing Thom Yorke's. The overly snail-paced arrangement is difficult to get used to, but those factors, as well as the creepy sound effects that also make their way in, still make it immensely satisfying.
After that aforementioned instrumental comes perhaps the most famous song, and probably the biggest reason for the side to be called the 'lighter half'. Also known as "Njósnavélin (The Nothing Song)" (another song used in Vanilla Sky - you think Cameron Crowe's a fan?), the life-affirming guitar line over a booming drum pattern is fantastic, and the vocal hook also does a fine job of conveying that uplifting emotion. It may not seem like it really has enough ideas to be 7 minutes long (like most of the album), but it has enough power in the music and vocals to deserve a lot of it, and I just love that cute little tinkling piano part that shows up near the end. And after that, the band was kind enough to give the listener a 30 second 'intermission' of silence before...
...they're plunged into the 'dark half' of the album, which many have said is the equivalent of being trapped in an ice storm. Admittedly, this half is generally where the album really lacks in musical ideas, but with the exception of the aforementioned "Death Song", the atmosphere is good enough to make up for it. The fifth track ("Álafoss", named after the studio where the album was recorded) probably counts as one of the slowest and coldest-sounding songs ever recorded for about the first seven minutes, with Jon wailing on in falsetto, and later on the band goes into a climactic section that really does sound a lot like portions of Pink Floyd's "Echoes" (not sure if that's a good thing or not). As for the sixth track "E-Bow", I always imagine it as the ultimate musical equivalent of the feeling you might get if you've been told the world is about to end (with it being all cold, dark and snowy outside), and it's absolutely amazing how the atmosphere of this song conveys it, even if, besides the wonderfully dramatic guitar-led climax, there's not that much to it besides that atmosphere for almost 9 minutes.
Fortunately, after the stretched-out boredom of "Death Song", the band ends the album with an 11 minute epic labeled "Pop Song" of all things - probably the most mindblowing reminder of their greatness on here. Although the guitar line that drives the first half of it along definitely has an unsettling dark tension to it, it's the second half that really makes the song - if this isn't one of the most intense endings to any album ever, I don't know what is. God, the way that dark chord progression keeps building and building and building until Orri our drummer, who to this point has been confined to funeral patterns for over an hour, completely unleashes the fucking FURY on us as he pounds like a madman while Jon wails his 'doooooon't yoooooou....' line over and over the entire time, it just leaves my jaw on the floor and my emotions drained for several minutes thinking about what I've just heard. I can't imagine even haters of the album (if they get this far, that is) not being blown away by that explosion, and it in itself raises the rating right back up after "Death Song" had just knocked it down.
Despite that unbelievable ending and the frequently gorgeous moments elsewhere, though, there's simply no guarantee you'll like this album that much, especially if you can't stand repetitive music in any form, in which case stay away, since this is probably one of the most repetitive and ridiculously drawn-out albums ever made. But at its' best it's just as powerful (and even more mysterious) than Ágætis Byrjun, just a lot more compositionally lazy, which is the frustrating thing about the band at this stage - they just seem like they're content to repeat musical themes without developing them much, but the fact that they actually still succeed at this approach in creating another very good quality album definitely says a lot about their talent. I'm extremely interested to hear what they have in store next.
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