thefalsesamaritan

(thefalsesamarit)

SIGUR RÓS REVIEW: 1/12

RATING: 5.1/10 (5.13)

This is a mess of a debut. The occasional beauty of the ambient passages save it from the fiery pits of my four or three out of ten range, but on the whole this has no direction, no cohesiveness, dull and drab sonics, and an overarching sensation of wasted time. The guitars are sluggish and quiet, the vocals are homogenous, and the experimentation – while an obvious prelude to what was to come after “Von” – does ... read more

RATING: 6.9/10 (6.98)

This is probably one of the most unfortunate cases of a terrible mixing job that I’ve ever experienced. Individually, the production side and the vocal-lyrical side are brilliant – the former being thick, off-kilter, and constantly unnerving, and the latter matching it in its granular detail, gut-wrenching themes, and even occasional catchiness – but the mixing almost places them at odds with one another, thereby flattening both in the process. The busy ... read more

RATING: 8.5/10 (8.58)

This album feels architecturally designed to prop up its two uncritiqueable masterpieces – “Go Your Own Way” and “The Chain” – a collection of songs that funnel you successfully into and out of the soaring perfection of the record’s peak. That’s what stood out to me the most; beyond the beautiful guitar work, the masterful harmonics, the diversity of the tracks – the band clearly have a confident hold on how to ... read more

RATING: 7.1/10 (7.12)

This is mind-bogglingly impressive for something produced on a cracked VST over just seven days – a genuinely endearing quarter of an hour that oscillates between whimsy and grit. The criticisms I do have of it – the occasional aversion to consistent key, the unavoidably procedural-sounding strings, and at points the odd mixing, which are all embodied most explicitly by the opener – slowly evaporate as the “week” elapses. The points of ... read more