The other track that gets close to this level of quality is “Hjartað hamast (Bamm bamm bamm)” which, with its unassuming funky organ and harmonica, has some of the most intense crescendos on this album – Jónsi once again serves us up with some powerful vocals which are perfectly accompanied by the strings and harp. The two tracks I’ve just described are, to my ears at least, quite easily the high points of the album. The outro, returning to horns and a bit of percussion, is just as satisfying and well-crafted. He could be singing about vaccines causing autism for all I care – the emotions pour in through every word and note that comes out of the instruments.
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Jónsi delivers the best vocals on the album and it all combines into the most cathartic part of the release. When the percussion kicks in, sweet baby Jesus it is perfect: it comes in hard, gives you one second to breathe and then it goes in really hard. The horns, combined with the bass and ambient sounds, and Jónsi’s fragile voice, create one of the most atmospheric instrumentals on this album. Just amazing.Īnother one of my favourites, “Ný batterí”, is the most sorrowful track on the album (I think, I have no idea what the lyrics are about), courtesy of the very mournful horns in the beginning and end. Also, let’s not forget the small details – the two acoustic interludes and that cheeky trumpet addition in one of the string sections. When the horns kick in, the song goes into overdrive and the final string section is unparalleled in beauty. It is exemplary songwriting, especially instrumental-wise, with the string melodies being the result of master craftsmanship.
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The beauty of this song cannot be stated in mere words, so stop reading and listen to it now. One of the real highlights of the album, “Starálfur”, follows afterwards, and quite the spectacle it is. Personally, they are not my cup of tea, and though the track is a fantastic, warm blanket which unravels in slow-motion, on account of the lazy, dreamy vocals and the aforementioned bleeps, it doesn’t really pick up until six minutes in, though it is only a fleeting moment of urgency we are offered. The intro track which consists of half reversed sounds and half sonar beeps, only introduces us to the next track, the polarizing “Svefn-g-englar” which has as many detractors as appreciators on account of Jónsi‘s high-pitched, siren-like vocals. Besides those, this album is not particularly guitar-centric – at least not in a traditional way.Īnd this is where it caught me completely off-guard. In contrast to that album’s Ambient pedigree, Slowdive‘s shoegaze credentials would have been all but thrown out the window were it not for some very short Wall of Sound sections as found in “Svefn-g-englar” and “Hjartað hamast (Bamm bamm bamm)”. Just compare “Svefn-g-englar” and “Blue Skied an’ Clear” and you’ll see what I mean. Rather, Ágætis byrjun draws from Ambient Pop and Dream Pop, and the most obvious influence, to my ears at least, is Pygmalion – an album which came out four years before. The differences though, between that album and Ágætis byrjun, are so pronounced that mentioning the two in the same sentence is unfair to both – there is so little that they have in common: one is an introverted, anxious and claustrophobic journey into the mind while the other is a life-affirming trek into a beautiful world. Certainly, one of my favourite albums ever, Spiderland, along with the stuff of Talk Talk, could be credited with shaping the fundamentals of this style of music: long, instrumental passages and crescendos. Post-Rock is a genre I haven’t explored beyond my safe space.
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This album, for me at least, is the stuff of legend.