Sigur Rós - Ágætis byrjun
Critic Score
Based on 14 reviews
1999 Ratings: #8 / 164
User Score
1999 Rank: #9All Time: #226
Liked by 533 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
Tiny Mix Tapes

Ágætis Byrjun is an album for the heart and soul -- an album for your life.

100
Sputnikmusic

For all of the hyperbole thrown at this album, it still remains indescribable. It sounds other worldly, while seeming so beautiful and so natural. It represents a standard, and one the band really have yet to duplicate, yet somehow, it’s impossible to think that they really ever will.

100
NOW Magazine

With songs rarely coming in under seven minutes, Ágætis byrjun does move at a glacial pace, but it's never sluggish. It is, however, the kind of record that can immediately change the mood of the room you're in.

94
Pitchfork

Sigur Rós effortlessly make music that is massive, glacial, and sparse. They are Hidden People ... They are the first vital band of the 21st Century.

90
Drowned in Sound
At its best this album is exhilarating and beautiful and will send shivers down your spine every time. At its worst, well, it’s good for falling asleep to.
90
musicOMH
So engrossing is the spell with which Sigur Rós work, so powerful is the scope of their vision, that post-rock or not, they’ve certainly created a sort of music unlike any that’s been made before.
90
AllMusic
At its best, the album seems to accomplish everything lagging post-shoegazers like Spiritualized or Chapterhouse once promised. However, at its worst, the album sometimes slides into an almost overkill of sonic structures.
80
SPIN
Rós' music is all midnight sun and bummed-Viking angst.
80
Rolling Stone
They evoke folks as diverse as Led Zeppelin and My Bloody Valentine, but the gently woozy Sigur Ros don't sound like anything or anyone else so much as a classic-rock band bewitched by white magic.
80
Slant Magazine
Sigur Rós is perhaps the first (and only) Icelandic export to strike an international nerve since the Sugarcubes.
80
Q Magazine
Sigur Ros's second album proper features this astonishing opener ["Svefn-G-Englar"] and 10 others which, while surprisingly diverse, each reflects their penchant for apocalyptic serenity, overdriven guitars and teenage singer Jonsi's Birgisson unique Hopelandish language.
70
NME
Waves of unidentifiable noise, dulcet vibraphone pulses and singer/guitarist Jonsi's ethereal singing (more like some ghostly instrument than any conventional vocal, borne out by Jonsi's fictional 'language', Hopelandish, which he often sings in) mesh to create an elegant, grand music that's equally ambient and epic.
60
The Guardian
They may be prone to kicking off songs by sustaining one note until they get bored, but greater crimes have been committed in the pursuit of post-rock queerness - and Sigur Ros have a great deal of redeeming prettiness.
60
The Independent
A moody full-length work that create a unique transcendentality that sweeps through emotions from woozy guitar-led tracks to jerky, twisted numbers.
barcooper
91

Starting the year with this weird ass looking baby/fetus/alien album🎉🎉

To be honest, I've heard some songs off this album about six months ago and I thought it sounded like bullshit Disney music mixed with post rock, and I was bored as hell. Since then I was kind of afraid of going back to it despite the album's reputation. But about a week ago I finally decided to give it another try, and yeah I was an idiot.

This is the band's sophomore album, released in 1999, after their not very ... read more

Calup
100

Beauty: a combination of qualities that pleases the intellect or moral sense.

Late in 1999, Sigur Rós released a message on their website titled "Our Life... So Far," following the release of their U.K. EP Svefn-g-englar in September and their second album Ágaetis Byrjun in June in Iceland.
To begin with, their location is described as "Reykjavík, Iceland." Somewhere in the North Atlantic Ocean," they said, describing the difficult meteorological ... read more

UltimateLifeFrm
95

This. Is. Beautiful.

Icelandic post-rock group Sigur Rós have been a name I've been wanting to check out for a long, long time now. Something their aesthetics on their covers as well as their variation of genres had me intrigued.

Ágætis byrjun translates to A Good Beginning and was released in June 1999, having been recorded during August 1998 til April 1999.

It was Sigur Rós' breakthrough album both critically and commercially, having won numerous awards and ... read more

MrPancake
85

Listening to a new album every day: Day 247

This album feels like a journey. It has a pretty clear beginning, middle, and end. The beginning songs feel similar to lullabies, being comforting tracks with beautifully calm instrumentation, with lyrics that speak of birth and childish joy. The middle of the album is the longest section, adding more heavy drums on most songs and using metaphors to describe some pretty heavy struggles. The ending calms back down a bit and resolves the struggles in ... read more

90

beautiful

PabloCommunist
97

Though rather dense, a very pretty and wonderful listen! At times I find myself a little bored, but for the great majority, it's nothing short of captivating

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Track List

1Intro
1:36
85
2Svefn-g-englar
10:06
96
3Starálfur
6:46
93
4Flugufrelsarinn
7:47
90
5Ný batterí
8:10
93
6Hjartað hamast (bamm bamm bamm)
7:10
88
7Viðrar vel til loftárása
10:17
91
8Olsen olsen
8:02
93
9Ágætis byrjun
7:55
89
10Avalon
4:02
84
Total Length: 1 hour, 11 minutes

Year End Lists

#2/Pitchfork
#3/Paste
#13/SPIN
#35/NME
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