Product Description: 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.
Amazon.co.uk: Sigur Rós--the sound of snow-capped peaks. Or winged things flocking over vast plains. Or salmon making that final courageous, muscular leap upstream, homeward bound. Ever since the BBC so aptly enlisted the help of the band’s 'Hoppipolla' single to theme the groundbreaking natural history series Planet Earth, the ever-ethereal Icelandic band have become somewhat typecast, finding themselves conducting awe across the backdrops of nearly every other programme in that broad genre. And with that came the danger that all which followed would automatically become an instant cliché. And though their last album Takk saw a slowing of their evolution in favour of solidifying the established sound in accessible earfuls, Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust (which translates as 'with a buzz in our ears we play endlessly') sees enough of a stylistic twist to keep things moving, without undercutting this new approachability. Where previously they sounded untouched by human hands, all alien post-rock abstractions, they now sound much more organic, sometimes literally like men playing instruments in a room. Albeit pensively, and extraordinarily. It is a perky record, attentive and exquisite, familiar but not derivative. The rhythmically adventurous 'Gobbledigook' reminds of Brooklyn experimentalists Battles, unplugged, the xylophone heavy 'Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur' is this album’s 'Hoppipolla' and 'Ara Batur' is trembling, lonely and eventually triumphant. 'Festival', the album’s centrepiece, melds the old and new Sigur Rós dramatically over nine majestic minutes and must number amongst the best moments of their career. -- James Berry
Digital Life Reviews
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Ice-tastic!
This is my first try with a foreign language CD. Sigur Ros is a great band from Iceland and their beautiful melodies are wonderful to listen to. I know that American music is popular all over the world, now I know what it feels like to get into the sound of a band, even if you do not understand the language they are singing in. It is very different, a very interesting sound.
Rating: - I just cant stop listening to this album
There are some albums where you like one or two songs and the rest just does nothing for you. then there are albums where you like every song on it but then after a while it gets old and it falls by the wayside. this album took me completely off guard. i heard a song on a local college station and took a chance buying the whole album....i must have listened to it through ten times or more since i bought it and each song remains fresh and new. im even hard pressed to name one or two favorites beacause each song remains as strong as the one before it....the songs are rich and passionate. emotional but catchy...i dont understand the lyrics but you dont really have to. the music pulls you in and takes you in a "pied piper" fashon....i think i can officially call myself a die hard fan
Rating: - Lacking emotional connectivity.
What happened to my dearest Sigur Ros? Why so mellow?
I understand everything/one must evolve. But why in this direction? It simply lacks the intensity found in their earlier works. It should `work', but it simply fails to click with me.
Track by track analysis:
Globbdigook- Downright pop. Or freak-folk, depending upon how you look at it. Catches you at first listen, but ultimately, like nearly everything on this album, lacks substance. The `lalalalala'ing? Are you kidding me? I know I shouldn't play the compare game, but people. Listen to Untitled One (Vaka), then this in succession. Serious drop in quality.
Inní mér syngur vitleysingur -A bad circus. Chaos. Sudden explosion of sound. Appears like it's trying to be catchy, but it isn't even that. I'm amused by the fact some of it sounds like it's in English though. `A thirsty anger' `kinky' `we flip and throttle' .
Góðan daginn ... Read More
Rating: - More Icelandic beauty.
Endalaust is an interesting album to me. If my impressions of the band's general sound from listening to ( ) is accurate, which I'm pretty sure it is, then Endalaust is a significant departure from that. It's less post rock and more hippie indie wanky stuff, in a very entertaining way. But plenty of bands have changed their sound, what's interesting to me is how they don't abandon their old ways. Their earlier sound slowly creeps back into the album while it's playing, eventually completely taking over again. It tells a story just with the evolution of its sound more than any album I can remember. It seems to me like a youth growing older, or maybe an adult reverting to childhood, I can't tell which. But it's really beautiful anyway.
"Gobbledigook" is the single with the music video featuring happy, dancing, naked people; imagery that really fits the song pretty well. The pounding drums make the song for ... Read More
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- Ice-tastic!
- I just cant stop listening to this album
- Lacking emotional connectivity.
