It's not much of a loss that the tracks are untitled-who can remember which track off of Ágætis Byrjun is which, anyway?-but it's still a puzzling artistic choice. The repetition of a central vocal motif gives the album a bit of a coherence, however, but it's like using just one vocal sample for an entire techno album. Throughout much the album, Jonsi sings only variations of five or six Hopelandic syllables: "Yo xi lo, no fi lo." It makes the idea of the fan penning interpretations of the lyrics irrelevant, and seems like a bit of a cop-out. Jonsi's Hopelandic vocals sound much like the Icelandic on Ágætis Byrjun-but if ( ) can be faulted musically, it is because of this vocal style. Call ( ) "Sigur Rós," or "the new album," or just "untitled"-I'm thinking of calling it "Halves".
The second half, though no less beautiful, is sadder, rawer, more anguished. The album's two halves are different both musically and thematically though melancholy is an integral part of all of the band's music, the first four songs are more hopeful, optimistic-sounding.
The title ( ) seems to refer to the album's halved structure: four songs, a thirty-second silence, four more songs. They really are good enough to do whatever they want. Their music is so powerful and genre-defying that pretension seems not to apply. So-are Sigur Rós pretentious? I prefer not to think so. On the band's previous album, Ágætis Byrjun, he sang mostly in Icelandic, but on ( ) he sings in an invented language called " Hopelandic" ( von lenska). The idea is that the most oft-used words and phrases will then be recognised by a computer program on the site and 'become' the lyrics." That's another thing: Sigur Rós has a lead singer, Jon (Jonsi) þor (Thor) Birgisson, but no lyrics. The band's pre-album press release stated "listeners will be invited to write or illustrate their own interpretations of Birgisson's 'Hopelandish' vocals and post them on the site. Further, the album has no real liner notes they are made of tracing paper and are printed with barely perceptible photos of tree branches. Why does Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós' latest album have the unpronounceable title ( )? Nearly every review of the album concentrates on the " pretentious" quality of releasing an untitled album with eight untitled songs on it. This product warps space and time in its vicinity.
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