Track Listing

1. Silent Shout
2. Neverland
3. The Captain
4. We Share Our Mother's Health
5. Na Na Na
6. Marble House
7. Like a Pen
8. From Off to On
9. Forest Families
10. One Hit
11. Still Light

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22263 in Music
• Released on: 2006-07-25
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

incredible!
I bought this because it was listed on Pitchfork as the best album of 2006. I was skeptical, but bought anyway. My music vocabulary isn't extent enough tto describe the layered greatness of this album. By far the best thing I've heard in the last six months. If you love electronic beats, get it!

Sharp improvement
What a difference two years makes, it seems. The Knife's last album was so overwhelming and uneven that one had to wonder if they were nothing more than a sub-par singles group. But with Silent Shout they prove they're capable of producing consistent albums and dominating the genre not with overplayed pop hooks but dark and atmospheric soundscapes punctuated by sharp bursts of light.

True, the album does have a few losers along the way (the overcooked and cartoonish "One Hit," the shrugworthy "Na Na Na," and the rhythmically-challenged "From Off to On") but even these lesser moments fit in so naturally with the rest of the album that it's difficult to think of a truly good reason to skip them. Meanwhile, "Marble House" shows a new direction for the band while "Neverland" sounds like a possible leftover from Deep Cuts, a sibling to their catchy hit, "Heartbeats," but with greater purpose and a stronger dynamic within the current mix. Even the iffy early single, "We Share Out Mother's Health," emerges as a surprisingly solid moment. They still have work to do, but suddenly the Knife shows promise where they once only showed missed opportunity.

Best cuts: "Marble House," "Neverland," "Forest Families," "Like a Pen," "Silent Shout," "Still Light," "We Share Our Mother's Health," "The Captain"

Conventionally Electronic?
I listen to a decent amount of heavily-electronic artists, but wow!, when I appropriated Silent Shout into my rotation, I'd not the faintest idea how quickly it would rise to the top and remain there. It is going to take an utter masterpiece to even come close to touching the third release of The Knife. This, like many others have asserted, is not for your casual listener. I know from several of my friends' reactions that this music is addicting but can be quite macabre at times. Not that it makes much difference, but until I read that Olaf lays down no vocals on this album, I myself was more fearful of it. I guess the discovery that Karin does all the vocals (even the terrifying chants of "One Hit") brings the album down to reality: that this is a human being, whose voice is tweaked further than most artists would ever fathom, not some monster providing vocals; although, incidentally, the song is sung from the perspective of a monster of sorts: a misogynistic one. This album is avant-garde mainly because it does what most other electronic albums don't; it simultaneously sounds like it was produced with a computer but not pre-programmed. When I listen to many electronic albums I get the impression that the artist is simply laying down vocals on beats that came with their machine, rather than creating anything remotely interesting, worthwhile or unique. No matter how dancy Silent Shout gets there is an omnipresent and insidious gloom lurking about in each song. Take the album as a whole, give it a few listens and check out the title track, "Neverland", "We Share Our Mother's Health", "Marble House" and "Like A Pen" if you are skeptical. Although their previous two releases are better than most electronic albums, The Knife, like wine and some cheeses, get better with age.