Sigur Ros - Hvarf / Heim (Dig)
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Free Music Notes for Hvarf / Heim (Dig)
Free Music Review: Really Different and Beautiful
Hit: 5 Stars
Sigur Rose has a unique quality that is enchanting to me. Their music is like a tone poem in 4 dimensions and I want to go to Iceland every time I hear them. This is my favorite album of theirs so far.Free Music Review: The greatness of the CD surpasses any distaste
Hit: 5 Stars
Sigur Ros is so phenomenal that I did not even notice how quickly it was shipped. I was just so elated to get it that it did not matter. Thank you for having it available for purchase.Free Music Review: Odds-and-ends but quite nice anyway
Hit: 4 Stars
Sigur Ros has been very busy lately (the last 2 years). After touring endlessly beyond the Takk album around the world, they toured their native Iceland and recorded the experience for a DVD "Heima", which was released last Fall. Just about the same time, Sigur Ros released this collection as well.
Hvarf/Heim (2 CDS; 11 tracks; 73 min.) consists of seemingly 2 completely separate CDs. On "Hvarf" (5 tracks; 37 min.) the band went looking into the archives and came up with tracks scattering from 1995 to 2002. The best in the bunch are "Hljomalind," which sounds like it could've been an outtake from "Takk", even though it was recorded in 1999, and the 9+ min. "Von" (recorded in 1995), as lush yet introspective as anything as the band has done. "Heim" (6 tracks, 36 min.) brings tracks from that Iceland tour in 2006, and it really is nice. All the tracks are acoustic only. The opener "Samskeyti" is an beautiful instrumental, and the other tracks flow just as well. The band is augmented by the strings quartet of Amiina on all tracks, and as such most of the tracks don't sound all that different from the original tracks, even without the epic electric guitar of Jon Birgisson.
In all, this is a nice, but not essential, addition to the Sigur Ros catalog. Since then, the band has released a new album recently, Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust, which seems to mark a new musical direction for Sigur Ros. I'll be sure keep my eye on these guys.
Free Music Review: under-appreciated acoustic set.
Hit: 4 Stars
Hvarf/Heim isn't meant to be a real album, just a little treat before the band releases a new LP sometime in summer '08. So, of course we can't expect this release to be as epic or groundbreaking as their others, and diehard fans need to go into it knowing that there is really nothing new. Really, this collection is meant to be a little more personal, especially disk 2.
The most under-appreciated part of this two disk set is, in fact, the second disk. It is not very often that anyone gets to hear the band unplugged, and many have grown entirely too accustomed to listening to them with electricity. By removing the electricity, Sigur ros managed to take some of their more epic masterpieces and make them more natural and personal. Let's take for instance Heysatan. While the original on Takk isn't too much different, the live recording strips the band down to the bare minimum and the song becomes almost a lullaby. The rest of the songs follow suit. I was personally surprised how lush their songs stayed unplugged.
The "new" material on the first disk isn't really new at all. All of it has been recorded in the past, with two of the songs being exclusions from previous LP's.
In the end, I can't, in comparison to the band's other works, give this a five star rating. But I can give it 4, and a place in my cd collection.
Free Music Review: Good Introduction to Sigur Ros
Hit: 4 Stars
Do you like strong catchy hooks in your music?
Do you like songs that last about three minutes?
Do you likes insane guitar riffs?
Well, if you do, this probably isn't the band for you. However if you like music that is emotional and atmospheric, I can't recommend this band enough.
On the subject of this Hvarf/Heim, it's good, but not great. This is a great album to start with, if you've haven't heard the band before. But if you are a die-hard Sigur Ros fan, you've probably heard most of this stuff before. Hvarf is a collection of b-sides. Heim is a collection of live material.
Heim dwarfs Hvarf in comparison (as Hvarf was a little forgettable to me). However, the songs on Heim stem out from the live DVD released by the band, Heima. And while both discs are good, I wouldn't recommend buying this if you already own Heima, as the DVD contains more performances by the band, unless you are a die-hard Sigur Ros fan.
If you're just a beginner though, this set is a good starting point.