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Oct 2, 2020The combination of Jónsi and Cook may be an unlikely one but it works so well. This, the first release, of their collaboration, has produced an excellent album that is an exciting highlight of 2020 so far.
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Oct 5, 2020Listening to Shiver, it’s easy to imagine up-tempo tracks getting remixed as sophisticated, otherworldly club bangers. When we are eventually allowed back onto teeming dancefloors, Jónsi’s swings of melancholic euphoria and piercing wordlessness may hit just right.
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Sep 28, 2020Offers a new kind of glimpse into his private world, singing intimately of desire and raw vulnerability. Maybe that's why Shiver feels as liberated as it does: the sound of an artist in midstream, still discovering how far his voice can go. [Oct 2020, p.95]
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Oct 6, 2020More thrilling are the metallic scrape of Swill and Wildeye, the skittish robotic choir on Hold, and Salt Licorice, which features Robyn, synth melodies that appear to be disassembling themselves and lyrics about “Scandinavian pain”. More of this, please: Jónsi suits the shock of the new.
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Oct 5, 2020Despite the prominent guest stars and radical musical changes, Shiver's focus is always on Jónsi and his innate gift for expressing pure feeling. As he reinvents what is essential to his music, he delivers some previously unimagined thrills.
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Oct 5, 2020Where Go stood as a natural outlet for stifled creativity, Shiver extends Jónsi’s prowess even farther. Both may prove to be products of their times, but both serve as deeply singular bodies of work.
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Sep 28, 2020There's a smorgasbord of delights to whet the appetite here. [Aug-Oct 2020, p.86]
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Oct 2, 2020The record is unmistakably Jónsi, especially with his ‘Hopelandic’ language making several appearances. ‘Shiver’ provides an enjoyable glimpse into Jónsi’s direction, but struggles to balance the tonal dichotomies of abrasive electronic freak-outs and blissful melancholia central to the album’s appeal.
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Oct 1, 2020Shiver may be a step out of Jónsi’s comfort zone, but it’s a step that seems to have reinvigorated him.
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Oct 13, 2020Jónsi plays with orchestral beauty and flirts with pop, and ends up somewhere in between, fascinating and inscrutable.
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Oct 6, 2020While not exactly the wildlife-soundtracking level of Nan-friendly safe his day job has reached, it’s largely default Jónsi, just with a few more effects.
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Oct 1, 2020Gorgeous closers ‘Grenade’ and ‘Beautiful Boy’ run the risk of ending proceedings on the glacial landscape that you’d expect from Sigur Ros, but there’s enough of a futuristic sheen and optimistic vibe to keep it feeling fresh and make you wanna dive back in for more.
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MojoSep 28, 2020In all, more a series of disconnected building blocks than a cohesive album. [Nov 20, p.89]
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UncutSep 28, 2020Shiver sometimes feels like a glitchcore sound collage, where ambient passages are ruptured by harsh beats and clamorous noise. [Nov 2020, p.31]
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Oct 21, 2020The parts of Shiver that strain to be fun and fresh can’t seem to break orbit from the grandiose mass of Sigur Rós, and the album leaves a sense of oppressive profundity in its bulky wake.
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Oct 26, 2020Given Jónsi’s past solo releases and Sigur Rós’s discography, Shiver should have been much better than it turned out. While not a complete trainwreck, it disappointingly features a minimum of the signature greatness listeners have come to expect.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 15 out of 18
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Mixed: 1 out of 18
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Negative: 2 out of 18
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Oct 7, 2020
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Dec 15, 2020
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Oct 4, 2020