Ágætis byrjun

by 
AlbumJun 12 / 199910 songs, 1h 11m 58s
Post-Rock
Popular Highly Rated

Sigur Rós’ second record—their first to be widely heard outside their native Iceland—is one of those epochal, game-changing albums that redefined what is possible in rock music. In this case, it proved that a neoclassical, shoegazing post-rock band specializing in glacially paced 10-minute movements sung in a made-up, indecipherable dialect could attract a mass audience and become one of the most influential alt-rock groups of their generation. *Ágætis Byrjun* delivers one weighty moment after another: sonar-pinged arias that gradually accrue enough force to shift tectonic plates (“Svefn-F-Englar”); meditative piano ballads that erupt into shrieking symphonic psychedelia (\"Viðrar vel til loftárása\"); choral sing-alongs that sound like Christmas in heaven (“Olsen Olsen”). But for all of his band’s grandiose gestures, Jónsi Birgisson\'s crystalline, androgynous coo turns *Ágætis Byrjun* into an intensely intimate experience. Even if you can’t understand what he’s saying, his vulnerable voice has the uncanny power to tap into your most repressed emotions and deep-seated bittersweet memories.

9.4 / 10

Icelandic lore tells of the Hidden People who live in the crags and lava of jagged mountains.\n\ Descended from ...

Even on aesthetic matters, Sigur Rós entitle their sophomore effort not in a manner to play up the irony of high expectations (à la the Stone Roses' Second Coming), but in a modest realization.

Sigur Rós is perhaps the first (and only) Icelandic export to strike an international nerve since the Sugarcubes.

Album Reviews: Sigur Rós - Ágætis Byrjun

5.0 / 5

Sigur Ros - Agætis byrjun review: 1999 Sigur Ros broke down doors we didn’t even really know existed, and in the vast expanse that is the landscape of music, that is a truly revolutionary accomplishment.