Album Review: Sigur Ros - ( ) (vinyl reissue)

Fun fact, Christina Aguilera’s Stripped and the parenthesis album by Sigur Ros both came out (in America, anyway) on the same day.

Why do I know that?

Because a friend of mine in college, who had a car, was going to go out and by Stripped, and I had to convincer to buy it at Shop-Ko, which was near the “real” record store, so I could hitch a ride to pick up the Sigur Ros album.

I also had the opportunity, once, less than a year later to purchase the parenthesis album on vinyl, at a now shuttered record store in Minneapolis—but I chose not to, for some foolish reason that I’ll never quite understand. I guess at 20, this was when I was less concerned with owning good/classic albums on vinyl.

However, 13 years after it was originally released (wow I am sure old) the parenthesis album has been reissued on limited edition clear vinyl—limited to 4,000 copies, which, according to the band’s website, are all gone now.

I’ve always held this album very close through the years—specifically because of its first track (originally titled “Vaka”) and what it does to me whenever I hear it (turns me into a crying mess.) But also, for the band, it represents a peak. It moves them away from the slightly unfocused creative space of its predecessor, but it also isn’t as sharply focused on making “pop” music as its follow up in 2005. In a sense, it is probably the perfect Sigur Ros album simply because of the fact that it has hooks, or at least “catchy” moments, but it’s also loose and innovative enough that it still allowed for experimentation.

It’s also their most dense and cacophonic—clocking in at 72 minutes, it’s their longest effort, with songs on the second half of the record arriving at well over ten minutes in length, reaching noisy, skull reverberating peaks that they have yet to rival.

 One thing I nearly forgot about ( ) is that it’s completely sung in a made up language.

See, part of Sigur Ros’ thing has been that they since in their native Icelandic tongue, even though they are able to speak English. It gives their music a faux transcendental quality that I think they generally find kind of funny—they could be singing about anything really, but because of frontman Jonsi’s soaring falsetto and all of these words we can’t understand—it sounds gorgeous to us anyway, and audiences eat it up.

Part of the gimmick with this album is that the band claims it’s sung in “hopelandic,” a phonetically based language that a mixture of vocal sounds and the Icelandic language, which is why on the opening track, it sounds like he is singing “You sat alone by the fire, you saw the light, you saw, you suffer, you know, you saw the light.” I mean, he may as very well be. Or, they may just be vocal sounds, and that is what I’ve always thought they sounded like.

Another thing more than worth mentioning about ( ) is the entire conceit of the album being somewhat self-contained.

Right down to the title, I mean—a pair of parenthetical brackets. What it basically says is that this music starts here, and it ends here.  And this album is really all about “the music.” Yes, these songs all had names, and they still have names—that’s how they are commonly referred to online, but within the context of the record, they are all listed as “untitled tracks,” and all you need to know is that there are eight of them.

There’s no liner notes for the album—none for the original 2002 release, and none for this reissue. The reissue, in fact, is supposed to be a replica of the original Grammy nominated LP packaging.

Let’s talk about the packaging for a second, and the overall presentation of this record in its reissued state.

First, you’ve got your die-cut outer jacket, which is pretty nifty I guess, mimicking the CD’s original heavy plastic slipcover. Then there are the two LP sleeves themselves, printed with the parenthesis logo on each side, the artwork is a referred to in the item description as being “spot UV varnished,”—each one seemingly representing a variant on the original CD cover art—a different version was released in each region of the world.

The records themselves, as mentioned, are clear and pressed onto 140-gram vinyl. They sound great, by the by, save for showing some cracks in the most chaotic moments of “The Death Song”—all in all, it pretty incredible accomplishment for how noisy and dense this record is and can be that it holds up so marginally well on such a fickle format, so good job to whomever remastered this thing.

However, one thing that its artistic packaging lacks is practicality. Spread out over four sides, there is nothing on the actual labels indicating which side is which. So unless you are just really good at guessing, you have to read the fine print etched into the vinyl from the pressing plant, which demarcates the proper side.

Before we get into talking about the music, and specifically if this album holds up after 13 years, we should take a moment to discuss my first world problems. I am thankful that I was able to get one of these at all. I mean 4,000 copies sounds like a lot of copies of something that is not brand new, but it’s apparently in high demand since it sold out nearly instantly.

However, I do have a bone to pick with the USPS, who dropped the ball with the shipping (it sat somewhere for upwards of a week before moving anywhere very suddenly and very quickly) and also damaged the album sleeve in transit.

A note on the website says since these were shipping worldwide, a “small corner ding” may occur. I guess the whole top corner being dented is more than that, but I should also count my #blessings that this thing even arrived at all.

Ok yes. But what about the music?

Well, thankfully, this album has held up extraordinarily well in the last decade plus. And it’s one of those rare albums that is both incredibly nostalgic—taking me back to where I was (and who I was) the very first time I heard it—but also, since it’s a record that I’ve carried with me through all these years, it still sound relevant.

Of course the album’s first track, “Vaka,” is its best—capturing how emotionally manipulative the group can be when it wants to. That song itself is a harsh juxtaposition to just how loud and heavy the rest of the record becomes in its second half. The instrumental “Seam,” and the perennial favorite, “Spy Machine” or “Nothing Song” as it is sometimes called, have also always been highlights from the album’s first half.

Every e-bowed guitar note, every distended organ drone, every thudding bass drum kick, every soaring high note and every weird vocal manipulation—it has all remained intact, and arrives here, 13 years later, sounding as innovative, refreshing, and fascinating as ever.

Arriving in my hands nearly 13 years to the day after I purchased the CD on a cold, overcast October day, ( ) remains an essential record: for me, personally, because of my attachment to it; and for the band, hitting a fearless, admirable artistic stride.

( ) is out now, but not available from the band. Bleep dot com has copies, however.