Customer Reviews

Agaetis Byrjun

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

What do you hear on this CD? Soaring melodies, an enchanting falsetto voice singing about things that you know must be important (but not a word in English), radio static, sonar pings, phase shifted notes from an accordion?, feedback from a bowed guitar, a volcano rumbling?, primal roars from ancient beasts (or it just the bass part?)...

When conventional arrangements of drums, bass, guitar and keyboard are used to back some catchy tunes, you're reminded that this is "popular music". Just not like anything else on the pop charts today. If the Beatles had access to synthesizers while they were making Sgt. Pepper, and only released the more interesting, experimental pieces, maybe it would have sounded something like this.

With all the praise being heaped on Sigur Ros, you may wonder if this music is really deep and profound. Not the way Beethoven's late piano sonatas are. Is is brilliant, edging toward genius? Yes. Is it fun? YES. Listen and expand your musical horizons to the edge of the world.

The title of this review may appear to be pretentious and contrived to one who has not yet experienced Sigur Ros' new album, AGAETIS BYRJUN. But in truth, this is the closest approximation that language provides one in which to describe this breathtakingly beautiful album. Too often in our world, words such as love, beautiful, and brilliant get thrown around like dirty laundry rather than savored and used only to express their true meanings. We deprive our language of its effect through our careless abuse of the only adjectives we have to describe the pen-ultimate. But, if there ever was an album that deserved to be called "breathtakingly beautiful," then this is it. Pressed for a description of Sigur Ros' intoxicating blend of melody and sound, Liquid Dreams is the phrase that most succinctly interprets this beauty into English. Yes, Sigur Ros' are from Iceland. No, they do not write or sing in English. But that may be the most astounding thing about this album: the feeling of the music completely transcends all language barriers. AGAETIS BYRJUN is proof in the argument that music is the universal language. The unique mix of the traditional instruments in modern music (guitar, bass, drums, keyboard) with the new (processed noises, feedback, distortion, white noise, reverb) and even the antiquated (orchestra, chamber music, chorale pieces) - all this - makes for a listen that is unlike anything you have experienced before. It may harken references to classical, free-form jazz, pop, prog-rock, etc..., but Sigur Ros are none of these things. Their unconventional blend of texture and style are best exemplified on tracks like the dreamy and subtle "Avalon," the delightfully smooth "Staralfur," and most of all during the excellent "Hjartad Hamast (Bamm Bamm Bamm)." It is on this track that Sigur Ros' textural beauty is most affectingly showcased. Strings glide and swell, while processed guitars whistle and whirr over tape loops and humming rhythms... all to climax in a buzzing, orgasmic chorus filled with heart-ache. It is on this track that Sigur Ros prove just how musically important they are. They are incomparable. They are in a playing field all their own. No one is even approaching this type of musical expression in the current music scene. I don't believe that anyone ever has. Key elements to the Sigur Ros sound are, as mentioned above, instrumentation and style, but - for the first time in a good while - the singer's voice plays a truly vital role in enhancing and creating the music. Jon Por Birgisson's vocal croons, swoons, yelps, and dazzling falsetto are used less to express words, and more to emote. In fact, as beautiful as the music is, his voice, in all its feminine grandieur, may eclipse it all. One listen to his voice on songs such as "Staralfur," or "Viorar Vel Til Loftarasa" and listeners will be swept into another plane. In truth, "otherworldly" may be a better adjective to describe the sensual experience of this album. Soon to be released in the U.S. (it exists as an import only, at the moment) AGAETIS BYRJUN is the perfect musical vision to open the new millenium... full of possibility, ingenuity, and above all, hope for the beauty of things to come.

This is definetly one of the best albums ever released. Hearing is beliveing. This in Sigur Rós' third album, but their first internationally released album. This album was first released in June of 1999 in Iceland and has been, more or less on the top ten ever since. Their music is a perfect mixture (bet you get a dejá-vu) og Godspeed you black emperor!, Mogwai and Spiritualized. All of these song are so achingly beautiful, so fragile and yet lurks an awesome power underneath. The music highlight of the album is, without a doubt the 10-minute epic "Vidrar vel til loftárása" (Good weather for airstrikes). This is a must-buy and a must-have in any good record collection. This is one album that can stay in your CD player for years to come.

This "Hopelandish" myth is getting out of hand. The lyrics on this CD are not in "Hopelandish". All the lyrics are in Icelandic. "Hopelandish" is something the band came up with while performing new songs live, for which they hadn't completed the lyrics. The myth that the lyrics on Ágætis byrjun are in "Hopelandish" is false, this is Icelandic (pretentious or not).

I work in a record store. I play this album at least once a week, and every single time I play it, someone comes up to me and says, "What IS this? This is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard!" And then I say, "Yeah. I know." Unfortunately that's the only way I can describe the album. Don't try to compare it to anything. At least, not any bands. When the piano kicks back in on the third track after the little acoustic guitar bit...wow. I get chills every time. Without question the best album of 2000, (Sorry to OutKast, PJ Harvey, Grandaddy, and the Doves). On their website, Sigur Ros say that they're going to alter the musical landscape forever. They're right.

Sigur Rós come from a land where cities operate when volcanoes are erupting next to them. Where school's take day trips to the largest glacier in Europe. Where it can be cloudless one minute, and then start to thunder the next. Iceland is a place of nature, and this CD is almost a culling of the energy that surrounds Icelanders day by day.

The best description of Ágætis Byrjun (Good Start in Icelandic) can be described as noise with a melody. It's like a merry-go-round played on slow motion. All different kinds of lights, animals, colours, and movement take place in one orchestrated ballet. The music that you'll find on Ágætis Byrjun isn't so much the rhythm influenced music that surrounds us day by day, but a collection of the primal sounds found in nature. This CD delights me day by day, and I couldn't think of a reason not to buy it.

I had never heard of this Reykjavík based band until last night, when I saw them in concert, so I was completely unprepared for the experience. I left feeling as if I'd attended a strange ritual combining classical music, avant-garde rock, and a mass. Sigur Rós manages to bring the ethreal feel of a Philip Glass opera together with the ambiant tone of Radiohead, the serene, tortured vocals of a gregorian chant performed by Smashing Pumpins, with occational ephiphanic peaks of driving drums and impelling base echoing the rage of Tool; and yet the totality is their own. The concert was more like a trance, I wanted the audience to stop clapping between songs so I could simply float between waves of sound and silence in this extraordinary realm the band managed to create - they performed like classical musicians rather than rock-stars, not speaking, not posing, merely playing their ethreal mucis and leaving the audience in some transubstatiatory state. Brilliant.

This album is the most inspiring album that I have ever listened to. I bought the album only for Ný Batterý but when I played the album from start to finish my jaw just hit the floor, I was so amazed by the inhuman vocals and the blistering power of the bow on the guitar. You can't define this music, the only thing that you can do is listen and make your mind take you to a higher plane, a different world where you just fly through the clouds and valleys of rivers and green grass.

Sigur Rós is my favorite band and Sigur Rós will be my favorite band for a long time if not forever.

This is ablsolutely one of my favorite albums. And it costs that I say this. I had been looking for something totally different, and I have found it. I've been listening to Sigur Ros' Agaetis Byrjun since over a month and its one of those cd's that are constantly around your stereo. Overwhelmed by the voices and phrases of the Intro song, Svefn G Englar is the kind of song that you want to listen to next. And it does. I really don't know what this guy sings but I definitely ended up singing along. The mood, it's mere hope.

I have realised with time I had been needing different music, but music with so much feeling. I put this cd and it just takes me away to a place where everything's just calm. And when I want to just fit in a perfect song, Hjartad Hamast is the song. Definitely my favorite. Just buy it. Don't listen to people who complain about a fancy case and drawings. Stick to what's important, finding bands that comply, that will make you know that not everything's invented, that a cello bow can create an atmosphere you will never forget. I'm waiting for translations now. BUt for now I'll just keep singing along. THis is by far one of the best cd's I have ever bought. DOn't. DOn't miss it.

This is magic. Not only Godspeed You Black Emperor and Radiohead spring to mind when indulging in this music. Also Portishead, Massive Attack and Pink Floyd (Ummagumma and More). But there is more to it. This is timeless music, this is also music void of genre or classification. This music makes you want to listen to other music void of genre or classification: Gavin Bryars "Sinking of the Titanic", Terry Riley's "Salomé dances for peace", Mahler symphonies and song-cycles and music by Gubaidulina, Schnittke and Gorecki.