- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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May 29, 2012On the surface, Valtari may seem like a step back for the band, but instead of just retreading the past, the album is one of their best; a refined display of their musical power with breathtaking dynamics and enough emotion to flood an ocean.
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May 23, 2012While not a major departure, Valtari adds a fresh, ghostly layer to Sigur Rós' slow-motion sprawl.
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May 30, 2012As an album, Valtari might not be the band's masterwork, but it very well could be their re-birth.
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May 23, 2012In some ways, this is one of their most beautiful releases in a career that has never been short of elegance.
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Jul 10, 2012With Valtari, the band has returned in some ways to the sounds it made its name with.
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May 29, 2012Slippery, shimmery, beautiful songs.
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Jun 4, 2012Without any sense of grounding, the record seems like an inconsequential fantasy.
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May 29, 2012Valtari is glistening, subliminal and sounds as if it's balanced on a falling raindrop.
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May 30, 2012These are meticulously calculated compositions, each weighty note serving its purpose in the grand arc of the album. This is beautiful.
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Jun 4, 2012Though true that the album lacks the fervent surge of nearly every other Sigur Rós record, it's far from a snoozer. The conspicuous beauty and flummoxing eccentricity of the past haven't gone anywhere – they've just had their edges softened.
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May 25, 2012This is perhaps Sigur Rós' most human-sounding album to date, too. Prepped for intimate nights with loved ones and exhausting journeys back home; it's an album that ditches the dramatic and brings in the calm.
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Jun 7, 2012Valtari might not be a huge digression for the band but that doesn't matter: this is quietly, entrancingly and thoroughly sublime.
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May 29, 2012Valtari might not be Sigur Rós's greatest work, but it is an album of subtle beauty and remarkable restraint that deserves to be heard.
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May 29, 2012There's nothing here resembling stadium polish: if anything, the lush arrangements often yield subtly fascinating results.
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May 29, 2012On Valtari it's back to the essentials: oceanic buildups, flickers of treated orchestras and falsetto vocal lines that yank heartstrings, even though you know exactly when they're coming.
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MagnetJun 19, 2012While no one track jumps out as a single, the entire album is something of a near cubist deconstruction of the band's sound. [No.88 p.60]
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MojoJun 26, 2012Ekki Mukk is a gossamer-light, if strangely riveting voice in the wilderness, while Varoelder drifts agreeably off into softly chiming waves of yearning desolation. Less stirring are the ambience-flecked, tympani-tickled meanderings that fill out much of the rest of the hour. [Jul 2012, p.90]
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May 23, 2012Valtari is a complex album and time is required for these songs to become truly effective. Once their beauty becomes apparent however, it becomes clear that Valtari is up there with Sigur Rós' best work.
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May 29, 2012Business-as-usual has rarely sounded this beautiful.
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Jun 4, 2012Valtari, their long-awaited joint band effort, revolves to realign their focus instead of undergoing any drastic transformation.
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May 31, 2012Impeccably produced, Valtari ultimately feels like two diametrically opposed albums.
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May 30, 2012The problem isn't that Valtari aspires to beauty, even if it's a commonplace, celestial understanding of it. Sigur Ros have proven they can make indelible music that's pretty and unpredictable, pretty and melodic, pretty and unnerving, pretty and inspiring. Valtari wants to be pretty and that's it.
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May 30, 2012It's easily the most cinematic thing they've done since their 2002 masterpiece () (or, "The Brackets Album"), and for those who prefer their earlier stuff this is definitely a solid return to form.
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May 23, 2012Beautiful front to back, it's still an album that never quite asserts itself.
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Q MagazineJun 19, 2012In the past, they have demonstrated the power to leave people flattened: Valtari, however, just falls a little flat. [Jun 2012, p.94]
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May 29, 2012It's a layered, gorgeous nothing, lush with nuanced drift and harmonic sweetness.
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May 29, 2012Teeming with crescendoed melodies, children's choirs, and other symphonic flourishes, the album serves as Sigur Rós's full-fledged reunion with the ethereal sound that made them famous.
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May 30, 2012In the realm of Sigur Rós, it's akin to breathing plain fresh air: in some contexts, refreshing, but in others, just... there.
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May 29, 2012Sigur Rós delivers a nearly percussion-free batch of ambient soundscapes that may frustrate fans of its more direct predecessor, but ranks among the group's most elegant records.
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May 24, 2012All too easily, the songs sink into the background – which is a shame, because there is also great beauty here.
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May 25, 2012The eight tracks of Valtari, which, while pleasant, are somewhat underwhelming examples of the band's formula.
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May 29, 2012It's as if the band's old pure musical sanctuary has been overgrown and started to crumble, with different light and air glinting through the cracks.
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May 29, 2012These slow-building, shivery washes of sound are what the band do best, proving worthy of far more listening time than those incidental moments soundtracking nature programmes.
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Jun 8, 2012Valtari is by no means a bad record; it's extremely easy to enjoy. It's even beautiful at times. Unfortunately, it's even easier to forget.
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UncutJun 1, 2012A bewitching record. [Jul 2012, p.82]
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May 25, 2012A pretty set of songs, but this time out, it appears that Sigur Rós's reach has failed to exceed their grasp, resulting in an album that is simply good rather than outstanding.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 53 out of 63
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Mixed: 8 out of 63
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Negative: 2 out of 63
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May 30, 2012
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May 29, 2012
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May 31, 2012