Inspired by the unfettered feeling of the acoustic performances filmed during Heima, Sigur Rós adopted a looser approach in creating their fifth album Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust. The album consequently is fresher and more human than anything they ve previously recorded. Rough edges, cracked notes, and the sound of fingers on strings are audible resulting in tracks (e.g. Íllgresi ) that prove to be the band's sparsest and most affecting work to date. Worry not though, plenty of electric guitar can be heard throughout the album ensuring Sigur Rós commitment to challenging sonic limitations. Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust is truly a groundbreaking album for Sigur Rós. It s the first time they ve attempted to write, record, mix, release and support (by touring) an album in the same year. Notoriously known for their laborious writing/recording style and their Icelandic roots, Sigur Rós decided to record an album outside of Iceland for the first time. Recording, mixing and mastering sessions took place in such un-Reykjavik cities as New York (Sear Sound and Sterling Sound), London (Abbey Road and Assault & Battery) and Havana. The result is pretty much their leave home album, the anti-Heima. The opening track, Gobbledigook , is a manifesto setter with its shifting/no time signature. On the last track, All Alright , Sigur Rós find themselves singing a song solely in English for the first time. The seventh track, Ára Bátur , was performed with a full orchestra and the London Oratory Boys Choir. This was recorded in one take with no overdubs and the result was 90 people playing at once and just one perfect take. This is their first album working with Flood (U2, Depeche Mode, PJ Harvey) and the first since their debut to not be recorded with Ken Thomas. It was a true co-production, one that found Sigur Rós breaking out of old molds/habits. The cover artwork is a photo taken from a flyer for Ryan McGinley s most recent photo exhibition in NYC, I Know Where the Summer Goes , and the image captures perfectly the spirit of the album, one of free-spirited happiness and exploration. The band will be touring the US throughout the fall of 2008 to support Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Deliciously pop.:
The fifth studio album from Iceland's supremely inventive dreamscapists is their poppiest outing to date.
A happy album from Sigur Rós sounds like an unlikely concept.
The band specialise in music that is about as sunny as an Arctic winter - vast tundras of sound, dark with melancholy and loneliness. So their fifth album comes as a surprise.
The brisk opener, "Gobbledigook", all jumped-up drums and manic vocals, sets the tone: its poppy energy crackles on through much of this... more info
Absolutely Incredible:
This new, more acoustic, style is fresh and uplifting. Really a great CD. Sigur Ros continues to be amazing.
Very Soft and Uhhh, not in English!:
amazon.com kept putting this band in my recommended section, so i bought it. then i wondered if i was going insane or whether the dude's english was just really bad. he was speaking icelandic! what the hell? i need to have an idea what the heck they are saying, without having to learn some obscure new language. it is also a little too soft for my taste. i mean, the band has some neat arrangements, obviously they have talent, but the foreign language and too soft tone makes it hard for me to say i really... more info
A lighter, exuberant and more dynamic set. I'm loving it:
Their fifth album starts in buoyant, wide-eyed pop mode, moves through some twinkling, delicate passages, revisits their usual slow-build post-rock prettiness and reaches an ambitious climax with "Ara Batur", an epic, orchestral requiem recorded with the London Sinfonietta and the London Oratory Boy's Choir, before ebbing away.
To the horror of some of their adoring fans, the CD actually contains a few melodies which one might tentatively describe as pop tunes.
More a development than a... more info
