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Jul 29, 2013Kveikur is the band’s noisiest and most muscular record yet. The variety of experience it offers not just from Valtari, but from the band’s entire catalogue, means that it stands among their best.
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MagnetJul 17, 2013It sounds like a band getting down to business, adjusting its identity to account for downsizing while consolidating its many strengths. [No. 100, p.51]
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Jul 3, 2013Kveikur is a strong album, one with no low-lights and an intriguing progression of sound.
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Jul 1, 2013The anxiety-ridden sound of Kveikur is the best the band has produced since their breakthrough album, and seems promising to yield only more rewarding results in the future.
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Jun 28, 2013It's more that Kveikur feels more like an unfinished trip (through said glaciers, perhaps), where the destination is in sight, but seen only from the halfway point.
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Jun 21, 2013I think Keveikur will, for awhile, make a lovely soundtrack as I walk along the shore.
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Jun 20, 2013It's initially unnerving to witness indie's most celebrated airy faeries butch it up, but the result ultimately satisfies their what-the-hell-do-we-do-next dilemma better than any record since Ágætis byrjun.
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Jun 19, 2013If anything, they illuminate an increasingly formulaic approach that, in its attempt to express extremes of human emotion, ends up saying not very much at all.
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Jun 19, 2013Make no mistake, Kveikur is another brilliant addition to the Sigur Rós canon; it’s just not, you know...different brilliant.
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Jun 18, 2013In moving away from the band's stultifying idea of beauty, Kveikur gets at something livelier--and far more lifelike.
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Jun 18, 2013For Sigur Rós, Kveikur is their most gloves-off release to date and they land the punch.
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Jun 18, 2013This is the exact type of work that needed to happen following Valtari: it’s bold when it needs to be without sacrificing the group’s hallmark signposts.
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Jun 18, 2013Though Kveikur is more anxious and busy than a lot of their past output, it still possesses the heavenly quality all their other records so admirably held on to as well.
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Jun 18, 2013Kveikur has structure and, hello, grit like never before.
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Jun 18, 2013It’s breathtaking as well as bloodcurdling.
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Jun 17, 2013The payoffs on Kveikur aren't immediate, but they're no less orchestrated than previous work, coming across like a more focused and fleshed out Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra with sweeter vocals.
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Q MagazineJun 17, 2013Here they sound as out of place as ever, and all the better for it. [Jul 2013, p.101]
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MojoJun 17, 2013Kveikur largely conforms to existing Sigur Ros templates, and though the quirky rhythms and ethereal vocals of Isjaki spawn a certain magic, something is audibly lacking here. [Jul 2013, p.82]
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Jun 17, 2013Kveikur comes as a violent but welcome surprise.
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Jun 17, 2013Even if it doesn’t have the same cultivated mystery or incapacitating demands of Agaetis Byrjun or ( ), Kveikur is every bit a return to form, tapping into its predecessors’ bottomless emotional wellspring for a Sigur Rós album that can be listened to casually or intensely.
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Jun 17, 2013Those moments [where it's stirring, sentimental, and altogether too safe] aside, there's plenty more that is beautiful, forgettable and primed to aid a little light Sunday-afternoon catharsis.
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Jun 17, 2013The trouble is, much of it still sounds about as vital as Coldplay Babelfished into Icelandic.
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Jun 17, 2013While energized, Kveikur doesn’t break away from Sigur Rós’ safe spots.
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Jun 14, 2013If the intuitive, star-gazing Valtari served as the rediscovery of Sigur Rós's signature sound, then the instinctual, sober Kveikur is its compulsive reinvention.
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Jun 14, 2013It's an album packed with Wordsworthian sturm und drang.
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Jun 14, 2013Tthe Icelandic trio has now adopted darker musical stylings to create a record that’s every bit as transcendental as their best work.
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Jun 13, 2013There's an edge of menace that wasn't there before, and the dirt beneath their fingernails seems to suit them.
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Jun 13, 2013Kveikur is a vibrant and much-needed reminder that the band's creative well is far from running dry. [Jun-Jul 2013, p.90]
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Jun 13, 2013The result feels less like accidentally walking into David Attenborough's funeral and more like some incredible, unrealised score for an immersive, imagined Icelandic crime drama.
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Jun 13, 2013All their hallmarks (choral crescendos, swooping melodies and stately horns) and a few curveballs (The xx-esque 4/4 beat on Yfirbor∂) are present, but the songs reach their emotional climax quickly.
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Alternative PressJun 11, 2013Kveikur is a masterstroke effort. [Jul 2013, p.104]
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Jun 11, 2013Kveikur is as melodic and, in places, as fragile as anything the band have released before.
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Jun 10, 2013Kveikur isn't the kind of post-rock album that you throw on to listen to as you contemplate the changing of the leaves, but rather an album that explores the differences between the comforts of the day and the anxieties of the night, blending the bright and the brooding to create something bold and beautiful.
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UncutJun 10, 2013All in all, a neat side-stepping of expectations and a timely one. [Jul 2013, p.81]
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Jun 10, 2013No two songs sound similar and, while Jonsi’s vocals confirm that this is, really, the artist on the album sleeve, it is far from more of the same.
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Jun 10, 2013Kveikur is a record you play for the sheer catharsis of it--a work of art to plug into when grey buildings and greyer skies tower too densely around you, and you wish for nothing more than to close your eyes and feel the terrible greatness of nature swallow you up.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 93 out of 100
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Mixed: 6 out of 100
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Negative: 1 out of 100
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Jun 18, 2013
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Jun 28, 2013
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Jun 20, 2013This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.