Sigur Ros CD

"()" was nominated for the 2004 Grammy Awards for Best Alternative Music Album and for Best Recording Package.
Set the controls for the heart of the sun: Sigur Rós had another baby and they named it ( ). It's just as excessive in length as its elder siblings, it's just as precious and almost as over-the-top sounding, and it's artfully packaged with next to no information provided -- no photo collage from the triumphant world tour, no acknowledgments of the supportive Reykjavik massive. No track titles are present, either -- the band has made them known, but obviously not through the traditional route. Whatever the issues with this record, musical or not, ( ) will only further repel the detractors. Despite the fact that it arrives three years after Agaetis Byrjun's original release, there are only adjustments -- no significant developments -- in the group's sound. The relentlessly funereal tempos, the elegant arrangements, and the high-pitched warbling/cooing remain in abundance. The overall mood of the album is subdued in relation to its predecessor. This is particularly true for the second half of the album, which is cleaved by a half-minute gap of silence. The sudden stratospheric crescendos resorted to previously are smoothed out, riding subtle gradients that allow for somber, elongated passages of drones and minimal instrumental interplay. The orchestral nuances, contributed by the string quartet Amina, take on a more background role. The fact that the emotional extremes are few and far between makes the album difficult to wade through -- its impact would've been tripled with about half an hour lopped off, but where to begin? None of these eight songs deserve to be left on the cutting-room floor. So perhaps it's most effective when digested in halves. Are Sigur Rós pretentious somnambulists bearing gimmicks, or are they Nordic gods bearing musical bliss? Regardless of the side you're on, ( ) is further proof that this group does what it does very well. ~ Andy Kellman
With critical darlings Sigur Ros releasing an album called ( ) that features eight untitled songs, this Icelandic outfit continues to go against the grain in a manner so esoteric that it's easy to imagine the band's oft-cited influence on Radiohead. Ironically, the vocals here depart from the previous albums' Robert Smith-like tones for a sound highly reminiscent of Radiohead's Thom Yorke. Perhaps SR is just returning the favor. In any case, most of these songs clocking in at over ten minutes, and the oddness quotient goes up considerably when you hear frontman Jonsi Birgisson singing in a fusion of Icelandic and a made-up language called Hopelandic. Infused with a melancholy mood wrapped around swirling, ambient keyboards and floating guitar chords, the dynamics become the bellwether of this musical exercise. With this kind of purposefully funereal pacing, listeners will either be praising this album as another example of Sigur Ros's innovation or attempting to rise from catnaps to declare that the emperor has no clothes.Rolling Stone (11/14/02, p.86) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...Sigur Ros make atmospheric music with lyrics in garbled Icelandic, heavy on the strings and keyboards - beautiful..."
Spin (1/03, p.71) - Ranked #22 on Spin's list of 2002's "Albums of the Year"
Spin (12/01/02, p.140) - 8 out of 10 - "...There's something awe-inspiring about this band's single-minded pursuit of mellow drama..."
Entertainment Weekly (11/1/02, p.70) - "...The Icelandic quartet again create an ethereal stir with sparse, atmospheric melodies and a falsetto wail..." - Rating: B+
Q (12/02, p.112) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...They make soaring, mind-expanding music that's near impossible to resist....This is a masterpiece of bombed orchestral elegance, at once expansive and intense..."
Uncut (12/02, p.140) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...It weaves a gigantic, undulating backdrop onto which you can project what you will..."
Magnet (1/03, p.106) - "...Sigur Ros occupies a space somewhere between the free-soaring folk jazz of Tim Buckley, the aquatic ethereality of the Cocteau Twins and the oceanic post-rock of Mogwai....The instrumentation arrives in vast, dense, Radiohead-plays-Pink Floyd waves..."
CMJ (11/18/01, p.6) - "...A soothing, uplifting compilation of wonder, reflection and vicissitude and an extended glimpse beyond the mundane..."
Mojo (Publisher) (1/03, p.98) - "...The album rocks, its symphonic depth and stratosphere-surfing melodies more affecting with each subsequent listen..."