(Untitled)

For a long time I covered everything up (after all, that's what we do when we're hurt, we just dig over it and scar it up). I never cried even though I wanted to, and I became very robotic and indifferent.

One night after having a huge fight with my (then) girlfriend, I took a long drive to sort it all out, and I popped in ( ).

It brought everything to the surface, all of the emotions that were buried, all of the hurt, the shame.

I exploded into tears as the music burst into beautiful orchestral waves of mania and melancholia. I hadn't cried in years. It felt so damn good. This music brought me to my knees and I saw my inner child, aching to get out.

That cold night I realized that I can be human again. I am a living, breathing, colorful soul.

Sigur Ros has a gift that most bands can not posess. If you're looking for beautiful, spiritual, mind-inducing music - look no further. It's like a musical drug that soothes and helps you.

Ok, I will be one of the few that will point out that "the emperor is not wearing any clothes". Based on a couple of tracks of their music and reading all the overwhelming positive reviews of Sigur Ros, I went and in one fell swoop, purchased most of their albums. With the exception of only one or two songs overall, this is the most boring, depressing, monotonous, droning band I have ever heard make it this far in the music industry. Granted, it must be depressing as hell to live in Iceland and as a musician myself, this is probably the drivel I would write if I were subjected to such a place on the planet. Most of the tracks seem as if the band members were bored and stuck inside the house and just experimenting with cool sounds and "concepts". These concepts and sounds are loosely arranged into "songs" but they are merely more akin to someone at a music store experimenting with a new keyboard on the showroom floor. I think many reviewers here on Amazon read the reviews and are influenced to go with the mainstream and offer a similar review. This music is creative, yes, but lacks any diversity which is truly the hallmark of a gifted musicians and composers - something that Sigur Ros is NOT! Their work is not really music, per se. It's simply..... well... the perfect music to blast on your stereo right before you take your life....

Sigur Ros' 2002 album has no real name, and all the songs are also untitled. There are no actual lyrics, all the vocals are in a nonexistent language. The booklet consists of several blank pages the band encourages listeners to write their thoughts in. Taken altogether, ( ) can seem kind of pretentious. It doesn't really matter though, it's about the music and it's pretty great.

( ) has two distinct parts, a light first half and a more intense second half. The first half is all about atmosphere. There's a lot of piano, especially in the third track which has a nice plunking tune, while the rest of it is more ambient pleasantness. They use distorted guitar to create texture instead of melody, and it's very dissimilar from the music you're probably used to hearing. It's best to not try and listen to it in quick bursts, and instead have it on when you're doing something else or just relaxing.

Where I think the album gets really interesting is the second half. It focuses on the build and release of tension, and with the time they take to get where they're going they can really create immensely enjoyable moments throughout. It takes them quite a while to get to the point, but once they get there it can be a transcendent listening experience. Some of it sounds like Radiohead at their spaciest, but Thom Yorke and company rarely get as climactic. The various songs can seem sort of similar in the way they work up to the big moments, but it doesn't make it less interesting or powerful. After the seventh track it seems like it's winding down, but before the final song ends it breaks into the hardest guitar you'll find on the record in a very satisfying conclusion.

The use of drums is much more important in the second half, as they set the intensity level almost by themselves, along with how passionate the vocalist sounds. Back to him, he's pretty good but I have a bit of an issue. Just because he's singing in a fake language doesn't mean it can't get repetitive. He sings what sounds phonetically like "You sigh on" or some close variation nearly constantly throughout the whole thing, and it can get irritating if you pay too much attention to him. It is this minor annoyance plus the very long amount of time it takes to get to the really good moments that keep the album from being truly excellent, in my mind. One could argue that the buildup makes the eventual payoff even sweeter, but I think it's still an imperfect way to make music.

The first half of this two part album is really very good, although the lyrics, which are in the made up language of "Hopelandic", seem a bit repetitive. The album seem to fade for the next three tunes before the band re-emerges for another honest go of it in the in eighth and final track.

Definitely worth owning if your are a Sigur Ros fan, but not as good as Takk or AEgitis Byrjun

Sigur Ros is, without a doubt, one of my favorite bands of all time. What these guys do can't be described; you have to hear it for yourself to understand. I think the word beautiful gets thrown around too much these days, but if any album I own deserves the title, this one is it. I mean, there isn't a bad track on the whole disc. How often does that happen? Sure, some tracks are better than others, but that's only because those tracks (1, 3, and especially 4 & 8 in my opinion) are so mind-blowingly good that they would put anything else to shame no matter what. Track 4 has one of the most amazing introductions that I've ever heard, and track 8 is, through and through, spectacular. It's like the whole CD is snow falling on a hillside, and the end of track 8 is the avalanche. It gives me chills every time I hear it.

If you are already looking into getting this CD you're probably the type of person who will love it, so stop reading this and buy it. You won't regret it.