Logo
DiS Needs You: Save our site »
  • Logo_home2
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • In Photos
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Search
  • Community
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • Blog
  • Community

THIS SITE HAS BEEN ARCHIVED AND CLOSED.

Please join the conversation over on our new forums »

If you really want to read this, try using The Internet Archive.

Sigur Rós

( )

Label: Fat Cat Release Date: 28/10/2002

2633
sean by Sean Adams October 26th, 2002

Enjoy.

It’s yours to discover.
( ) is..

…as urgent as hair growing, skin dying, memories fading, ice melting; mundane things changing…

…a beautiful, graceful, monumentally uplifting, sun setting; existential trip…

Gravity kicked in and it rattled as it went. A irreplaceable gift, tumbling, spinning, falling down a shadowy, infinite crevasse, to the centre of the earth. A locket that slipped from my frail ice burnt hands. Hands now bleeding from solidifying heart shaped tears tearing at my skin, perserving my pain, tracing where the locket slipped. I cry because I lost the one thing I had left from my life-long love...

Today I don’t care. I don't give a.. because it's this opus that makes me cry. Blub like the moment when I realised one day every special person I’ve ever met will die, they’ll be no more, ashes to ashes. Everyday, I feel the same pain as that day when butterflies became lemmings in the pit of my guts. Every single day, from then 'til now. Nihilistic thoughts morning, noon and night, pop the idea of death back into my tie-strangled head. And I weep because of dreams of gravity, where I lost that locket.

You probably (should) know all the hype about them being R’heads favourite band. And about them coming from Iceland, where snow is as enchanting as the sea to Hawaiians. You’ve heard the jazz about their lyrics being written in a made up lingo, haven't you? They're a band-of-bands so you’ll know bits and bobs via revelations from the heads and practice rooms of those who you admire and respect. It’s because of things (words can't do justice) like this gentle soundtrack to your dreams.

It’s a kinda classical style with textures, nuances, incomprehensibly complex song structures and melodies. You'll know nothing about them.

My heart breaks in half.

Atoms, split ( imperfectly ), both halves similar and unique in their own little ways.

Centred by chilling silence, just like the title. This album _is_ challenge-ingly long but so is the debate around the albums title (brackets around nothing) and the mystique and the connotations. To some people the lack of symbolic marks anywhere on the packaging, no communication, just a hand-written “Sigur Rós”, says a lot.

Leave nothing but footprints.

Less _is_ more.

Straight down the middlers hate them, they call them pretentious, but they’d probably incinerate works of art if someone politely asked them to.

None of the tracks are titled (that’s how to overcome people downloading your album!?). On record, all these nothings say something in their time-detached tongues of Jon Thor. Stoner rock could never be this psychedelic. A piano alone could never share this much emotion... I could try and document everything on this record but I can’t and I won’t. It’s like trying to explain the floating post-orgasm feeling to an innocent.

If you already know and adore Sigur Rós or Fat Cat's recent lo-fi/electronica/amazing releases, which most of our generation will be discovering in 40years time, then this album will be no surprise, it is more of the same cool classical, which is by no means a bad thing.

...Yet through all this, beyond the world flashing by me, I want to smile. I want to be ravaged by hope. Hope that one day in a future-life that I’m taken back, 400 years, to the edge of that tectonic fault, down beyond the ice, past generation after generation of embalmed ages. Down through the volcanic crust. Age after age. Beyond the chasms, the ravines and into the raging heart where the love lies. Standing, united, her hand clasped around mine, the symbol of our love at our feet. Our dancing eyes wondering whether it’s our something that we see flickering in dreams. The morning after, I will feel touched. I'll be running around, spring in my skip, sprinkling flowers as I go, divulging details to blue people about this prettiness, the joys, the magic, the something I don’t quite understand. I don’t want the magic or mystery taken away from me. I just want to believe.

( ) is…

…as pioneering, unnerving, inspiring, confusing, as lyrically anarchic as every thing that has moved the world, ever.

…why I love music, why this website has this name and why art exists. ( )’s yours to discover.

Enjoy.

  • 10
    User Score
Log-in to rate this record out of 10
Share on
   
Love DiS? Become a Patron of the site here »


LATEST


  • Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024


  • Drowned in Sound is back!


  • Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Year: 2020


  • Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter


  • Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing


  • Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alternative must sees



Left-arrow

Oceansize

Relapse

Mobback

The Vines at Camden Electric Ballroom, Camden, Thu 19 Feb

Mobforward
Right-arrow


LATEST

    news


    Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024

  • 106145
  • news


    Drowned in Sound is back!

  • 106143

    news


    Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Y...

  • 106141
  • news


    Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter

  • 106139

    Playlist


    Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing

  • 106138
  • Festival Preview


    Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alterna...

  • 106137

    Interview


    A Different Kind Of Weird: dEUS on The Ideal Crash

  • 106136
  • Festival Review


    Way Out East: DiS Does Sharpe Festival 2019

  • 106135
MORE


    news


    The Neptune Music Prize 2016 - Vote Now

  • 103918
  • Takeover


    The Winner Takes It All

  • 50972

    Takeover


    10 Things To Not Expect Your Record Producer To...

  • 93724
  • review


    The Mars Volta - Deloused In The Comatorium

  • 4317

    review


    Sonic Youth - Nurse

  • 6044
  • feature


    New Emo Goth Danger? My Chemical Romance confro...

  • 89578

    feature


    DiS meets Justice

  • 27270
  • news


    Our Independent music filled alternative to New...

  • 104374
MORE

Drowned in Sound
  • DROWNED IN SOUND
  • HOME
  • SITE MAP
  • NEWS
  • IN DEPTH
  • IN PHOTOS
  • RECORDS
  • RECOMMENDED RECORDS
  • ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
  • FESTIVAL COVERAGE
  • COMMUNITY
  • MUSIC FORUM
  • SOCIAL BOARD
  • REPORT ERRORS
  • CONTACT US
  • JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
  • FOLLOW DiS
  • GOOGLE+
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • SHUFFLER
  • TUMBLR
  • YOUTUBE
  • RSS FEED
  • RSS EMAIL SUBSCRIBE
  • MISC
  • TERM OF USE
  • PRIVACY
  • ADVERTISING
  • OUR WIKIPEDIA
© 2000-2025 DROWNED IN SOUND