Sigur R?s - Takk...
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Free Music Notes for Takk...
Free Music Review: I just don't know....
Hit: 2 Stars
I know I am joining a dwindling minority when I speak against this band, but I just can't help myself. I own two Sigur Ros albums including this one and I have listened to them many times in attempt to understand why this band has such a sterling reputation, but I have failed to uncover this mystery.
It seems like in the writing process, Sigur Ros get in a huddle and say to themselves, 'Lets find the most beautiful sound we can and use it throughout the entire album.' I mean, the sounds this band can make are amazing, but there is absolutely no 'umph' nor meaning to this music as far as I can tell. Its like this band tries to recreate the sound you hear while stepping through heaven's gate, and succeed! But I do not want to remain at heaven's doorstep throughout an entire album. I want a band to take me into heaven and show me how it feels to live amongst the clouds, and walk on solid gold. There is very little variation in all of Sigur Ros works, and very little more than one long, but pretty droning sound. This album is like staring directly into the sun; its bright and overwhelming at first, but after a couple of minutes your eyes get tired of it, and block it out.
Personally, when I listen to music I want it to take me places. I want to expirence an aurol journey that lifts me off my feet with passion and energy, and Sigor Ros does not deliver. This band provides nothing more to me than a pleasant background noise. For the record, a little light/dark contrast goes a long way in music, and the same shining noise throughout an entire album is a good start, but gets stale and overdone very quickly. Just think how much brighter the light would be, mixed with a little bit of darkness! Think about how much more interesting the Sigur Ros concept would be with the slightest bit of contrast. Some will argue that there are dynamics throughout this album, and I will agree, but anyone can play music louder to create a cheesy sense of climax. Change is good! No change is boring.
To me, Sigur Ros lacks everything I look for in music: Contrast, direction, backbone and passion. If I were you I would check out Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions in the Sky, and Pelican for music with personality.
Free Music Review: This album just "takk"s to me...
Hit: 4 Stars
*siiiiiiiiiiiigh*
Remember back when albums were a sonically satisfying masterpiece of music and clever wordplay, generally tied together with some overall unifying theme and message? When the music really meant something and 'spoke' to you, even when you weren't engulfed in a purplish haze? No? That's probably because they stopped making music like that somewhere between the Moody Blues' epic "Days of Future Passed" and when whatever marketing genius signed Paris Hilton's record deal. They just stopped. That reason and the fact that if you've ever even heard of the band Sigur R?s and you're from the wrong side of the Atlantic, then it was probably by accident or because you were visited and blessed by some sort of musical angel set out to save the world from even still more Nirvana rip-off bands and flash-in-the-pan American I-dulls. In either of those cases, you owe it to yourself and humanity, now that you've happened upon the band and this, their magnum opus, to listen to "Takk..." a good thirty of forty times or until you start humming to yourself in Icelandic.
The band, Sigur R?s, is from the fairy-tale kingdom of Iceland, where genetically engineered-to-be-beautiful little Bjork-ettes frolic in the steamy mists of the natural hot springs...you could read about the band now, more and more, on discerning alterna-sites here and there...or just visit their homepage. But what you won't learn about them on the interweb is that they secretly and deliberately have been stealing all the best moves in music and concocting this album as a means to propel their mother Iceland to fabled musical-mecca status so that instead of English or Chinese the world will all want to speak their language. Don't fret if you don't already...you won't need to understand a word to understand what they're REALLY trying to say here. The lyric sheet basically translates into: "We're going to take over your heart, your scene, your country and then the world." I'm not afraid. Heil Sigur R?s!
File this one under "what every band in the world would love to accomplish." It's rock, it's classical, it's rap and country (except without so much of the rap or country) and a testament to mankind's ability to create and invent. I'd call it "ethereal" if I wanted to risk your running to the dictionary instead of to the record store first. Let's just say this album would be what could have happened if the Beatles lived on a funkier island, had cuter chicks to impress, and didn't just do it for the money. Yes, yes...and spoke icelandic.
Honestly, I probably couldn't tell you where one song starts and the other begins as the album's tracks have been fused together so artistically...But you'll be too busy kicking yourself for not having known about these guys earlier to be able to decide which is your favorite track. Assigning genre? Pointless. Just embrace it and accept it, guys. That cute girl with the hoodie and the ipod you always see on the way to work already has....girls? so has that sensitive, well dressed fella you've been meaning to give the time of day to. It's time to see what music has been doing while you were away.
Free Music Review: Victory Rose, indeed...
Hit: 5 Stars
The simple fact of the matter is that Sigur Ros were introduced to the masses through their opening slot on Radiohead's Kid A tour. Since then they've been lauded and dismissed in just about every major music magazine in the world with most opinions siding towards the former; and rightly so.
For a band that's never released a song in English, it's a testament to their ability to convey emotion through music that probably 80% or more of their fans speak it as their native tongue and don't have a clue as to what Jonsi is saying, regardless if it were Icelandic or "Hopelandish". Seeing as how Icelandic (nevermind Hopelandish, Jonsi's "made up" language) is not exactly on everyone's list of second languages you could argue that, if anything, Sigur Ros are more tied to the base principal of classical music than anything else. How else can you explain the connection most fans associate with this band when they have absolutely no clue what is being said? Sigur Ros could get away with entirely instrumental sets and never lose their connection with the audience (hello Haydn, Brahms etc.).
Sigur Ros are the quintessential example of understated elegance in a live setting and Jonsi's frequent use of the bowed guitar instantly conjures up visions of Jimmy Page in Led Zeppelin's heyday. The band also shows creativity in their videos, visually touching on topics of homophobia to the possibility of an apocalyptic playground of the future. 'Takk...", the groups fourth major release, touches on just about every emotion the human psyche goes through in its lifetime, if not daily. And nowhere on this album is that more exemplified then on the track 'Svo Hljott', an epic soundscape which conjures up images of everything from the sun rising over frost-laden grass to holding your firstborn for the first time. That song is worth the price of admission alone, nevermind the oft-mentioned Glosoli, Saeglopur or Hoppipolla.
From the picturesque country of Iceland has come one of the 21st centuries most relevant bands, conveying more human emotion in 7 minutes than most bands do over a whole career.
Free Music Review: Very atmospheric, very emotional album
Hit: 5 Stars
I've never listened to Sigur Ros before today. I actually heard part of a track from this album on a youtube video, and decided to check them out. This album will blow you away, it's very moody, very atmospheric, very ethereal, at times angelic, never heavy but utterly moving. What a find! Check this album out as soon as you can, and let others with a brain for music take a listen, you and they will not be disappointed.Free Music Review: Of Another Dimension
Hit: 4 Stars
Think of the yin and yang concept to help understand this record. Light vs dark, incline vs decline, active vs passive, and so on, but it's done in a minimalistic yet methodical way in which all components come together naturally. Very atmospheric and beautiful. My tastes typically include TOOL, Radiohead, Porcupine Tree, Talk Talk, etc.. and this somehow fits in nicely with such intellectual music.