Ágætis byrjun

Pretty amazing stuff - atmospheric and dreamy. If I had one criticism, its that the album is a little longer than it needs to be; 50 mins or so seemed like the right length for this, and my attention drifted a bit towards the end.

I'd forgotten about these guys until they showed up on the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice soundtrack. This is still an interesting record, very much of its time but also floating above it, taking post-rock and fusing it with clubby comedown chill and Britpop's more orchestral movements, and adding a uniquely Icelandic twist.

One of the easiest fives so far. A whimsical and beautiful postrock/artrock/dreampop masterpiece. Every song is lush and compelling and sounds destinct. 5/5

Sigur Ros always passed me by, despite being a fan of some of their peers, and although going in hopeful this did nothing for me. It's undeniably well made and accomplished, but I found it cold and overblown.

Oh. Looks like I am a post-rock fan now.

Post rock is tricky. Everything stretched out and spacified and smothered in reverb. There's a fine line between epic and dull. I think this album just crosses the wrong side a little as it plows on through its 70+ minutes but the early part has some great sections.

Eh. I lost a lot of interest after 'Starálfur', which was really beautiful, but unfortunately, nothing else could keep the momentum going. I also liked 'Viðrar vel til loftárása' and 'Olsen olsen', but every other song pretty much had the same boring sound. And they were all really long, which contributed to my occasional loss of interest.

Sigur Rós walked so Explosions in the Sky could run. Amazing music.

My heart soared when this one dropped into the feed. As a teen from smalltown suburban UK, this album absolutely exploded my brain when I first heard it. I tried to remember how I was introduced to it, and was pretty certain it was from Q magazine - research shows the review was thus :

sigur rós' second album proper features this astonishing opener [svefn-g-englar] and 10 others which, while surprisingly diverse, each reflects their penchant desire for apocalyptic serenity, overdriven guitars and teenage singer jónsi birgisson's unique hopelandish language

Adored it then, adore it now

Agaetis Byrjun is a weird album for me. Its often difficult to tell what genre this album even is due to it flip-flopping around genres like rock, pop, electronic, and shoegaze but i guess i can agree that its an ambient album. That does kind of add to this album's rather interesting nature with it's songs. The songs themselves do sound pretty good for what they were trying to pull off with this sort of music and the problems with it are just the usual ambient album problems. It might not be an amazing album but it definitely is a very interesting one.
Best Song: Staralfur
Worst Song: Ny batteri

Calming, musical excellence. Does it matter that I can’t understand a word? Not really. Most songs in English are the same.

Een uniek geluid. Dat is altijd leuk om eens mee te pakken. Het is een soort Radiohead goes ambient. Al gaan ze naar beide kanten niet all the way. Het is iets minder zeurend dan Radiohead en heeft iets meer een band-klank dan de meeste ambient.

Wel moeilijk om actief te luisteren. Ik druk het blijkbaar vrij makkelijk weg in mijn hoofd. Het is daardoor een fijn achtergrondgeluid.

Har aldrig taget mig tiden til at høre et helt Sigurd ros album.. det var en fejl. Virkelig lækker plade!

Very cool trippy and atmospheric. I will be listening to it again.

On paper, I feel like I would enjoy this. Man, too many 10 minute atmosphere songs though. I won't knock it for experimentation, which I appreciate. It's just not a top album for me.

This is an absolute masterpiece. Sigur Rós really started something that was so unique and took the mainstream by storm. I know see that this album was the start of a wave of post-rock that changed Alternative music for the better, washing away the post grunge hangover from bands like Radiohead.

Puede que no estuviera en la vibra para disfrutarlo, pero no me ha dicho absolutamente nada. No me ha molestado oírlo y quizá en un futuro hasta vuelva a darle una pequeña chance, pero ha sido como tener ruido de fondo sin sentir nada.

Very solid background music, but it doesn't feel more. In fact, don't some of you find this to be a tad cheesy? Some of the payoffs in songs sound like the soundtrack to a movie where the characters are celebrating, and it starts to wear a little tiring by the end. Certainly a decent little project, but probably won't stick out too much to me in just a few days.

Stirring, comforting, mysterious, magical. Easily my favorite album so far.

This is a very good album, but not one I can listen to often. If I'm in the perfect mood, it's good to put on, but I just can't rate something very high if it's not something that I'm happy whenever it comes on.