The Icelandic band called Of Monsters And Men was created after, female lead singer, Nanna Bryndis wanted to change her solo career around. In an interview with Independent Philly she explains how they grouped up:
“I used to play solo for a while and called myself Songbird. I got my friend Brynjar to help me out and play guitar on some shows. The Raggi followed and was playing glockenspiel and melodica and singing. Then before Músiktilraunir, a music competition in Iceland, we were like, Ok let’s become a proper band and that’s when Arnar joined. Then before Iceland Airwaves festival 2010 we added Kiddi Palli and Árni because we wanted to make our sound bigger for that show, and they stuck around, so now we are six family members. Party of six!”
After the group came to be, they went off to Musiktilraunir, which is a sort of battle of the bands in Iceland. They won the battle in 2010 and soon after they got a record deal and created their first album.
The band’s first album My Head Is An Animal, was only released in Iceland in 2011. Of Monsters And Men where able to release their album worldwide in 2012, via Universal Records. The genre of their music is much like Mumford and Sons, very folk-pop like.
The album sets with a total of twelve tracks, all of which that the songs go to the length of four minutes or more. which is not bad but with many songs it can feel like a drag, especially when there is more than one slow tempo songs. Such songs being Slow and Steady, From Finner (which is drum heavy with a good rhythm),Love Love Love, Sloom, andYellow Lights (which has a beautiful crescendo however it does not help with the overall slowness of the song). That is five out of the twelve tracks, unless you are into these slow melodies that album will feel like a long trip
The more upbeat tracks consist of Mountain Sound and Little Talks. Which were the most circulated songs in the U.S.
Then you have the songs that are difficult to describe, because they’re slow but fast altogether, so I leave it to the audience what they think they’re considered. Personally King And Lionheart, Six Weeks, Your Bones and Lakehouse is the bands uniqueness of sound added to the bunch.
Even though the album is very lengthy it can overall be extremely soothing. With the different instruments and duet singing it makes up a beautiful mix of sounds together.
Cliffs 