Quite frankly, Silent Shout is one of the best albums I have ever bought, regardless of genre, and I really want to share my love of The Knife, but we will start at the beginning, for the uninitiated.
The Knife
Awesome cover art, I've always wanted it on T-Shirt. Ironically.
This was first released way back in 2001, but the version I have is from 2004, since Inconveniently I'm from the UK, but on the plus side, there are 3 extra tracks on the UK version, which you need.
Some of these tracks where better than others, but A Lung and High School Poem stand out as real gems from this album.
+ Show Spoiler +
Deep Cuts
Released in 2006, Deep Cuts contains alot of tracks I like, and some less so. She's Having a Baby, Rock Classics and The Cop never grew on me as much as the other songs from the Album. Heartbeats, now famously covered by seemingly everybody, You Take My Breath Away and Is It Medicine all leave a mark, with Karin echoing "being sane is full time work" on Is It Medicine.
The last 2 gems on the album are firstly, You Make Me Like Charity, with its child like voices of innocence laid over a minimalistic beat, slowly introducing instruments to great effect.
The second, and one of my favourite knife songs of all time is Pass This On, a song about love from afar, set to synth and steel drums, you need to listen to this song, if only for the steel band.
+ Show Spoiler +
http://vimeo.com/10377992 (for Heartbeats)
Silent Shout
The fact that this one comes last is convenient in many ways, chronologically, its their 3rd full length album, and until recently, it was their latest. As it stands, Silent Shout is The Knife's magnum opus, I find it difficult to fault a single track on the album, and having to chose a few songs to listen to, make it We Share Our Mother's Health, its brilliantly funky song with a video that has torture and decapitation in it, what's not to like?, plus the album version is a decent minute longer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=617ANIA5Rqs
Also, there is a great remix of this song by ratatat, another band you should be totally listening to.
The other song, is the titular song of the album, a dark and brooding message about gender dysphoria, make of the lyrics what you will, but there is nothing better than turning this up loud, feeling the floor vibrate to the beat, and annoy the people below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=tk1kFGfdsPk
If you are a fan of electronica, you owe it to yourself to have a copy of Silent Shout, its one of those Albums you have to own, the deluxe edition is real cheap, comes with live tracks too, while trying not to sound like a corporate shill, you'd be made to miss out.