CD Review: Sigur Ros, Takk

The new Sigur Ros draws mixed feelings from me. In many ways it is like Woody Allen's later movies, they are still better than 99% of what Hollywood spits out, but compared to some of his older ones they just don't cut it. Yet perhaps that is a bit harsh. This is a very good CD. Very good. Sigur Ros does what it does best by capturing pieces of rising and falling emotion, minimalistic sounds and epic, orchestral swells. Otherworldly vocals move over fantastic musical arrangements.... But something is missing. Each track in itself is complete and whole, perfect. Yet the album as a whole does not have that same flow as () or Agaetis Byjurn. The latter of the two previous albums creates an intangible and indescribable mood, a flow, a musical emotion that starts of whimsically and progresses with bombastic enthusiasm only to finally settle down into a drowsy sleep, protesting out of principle yet not putting up a fight as it smiles into its finish. () is another kind of mood altogether. It is a funeral march, a dirge, a weeping willow of a album, watching the snow fall on a musical cementary... Shedding tears for both the beauty of the scene and the tragedy of its meaning. It is one of the best ways of having your heart broken. But Takk is different. Its songs form microcosmic moods. Each one beautiful, but lacking the progressive and interactive depth that the other albums were able to attain. In many ways they are more admirable, their musical complexity is far beyond what Sigur Ros has done previously, yet in many ways it has lost its epic sensitivity in exchanged it for sound bites. Was it worth the money I paid for it? You betcha it was. It was probably one of the best buys in the store, which is why I feel it is unfair to portray it in a comparatively negative light. Buy the CD, you will not regret it, but expect the experience to be different. This is not an album that contains an Opus with many movements, it is a collection of sonatas and paeans.

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