2012 release from the Icelandic outfit formed by singer/guitarist Nanna Brynd¡s Hilmarsd¢ttir. Their rapid rise transpired in just one year. Nanna, who began as the acoustic act Songbird, recruited extra hands to bolster her sound for a solo show. She liked how her vocals commingled with guitarist/vocalist Ragnar "Raggi" _¢rhallsson's, so they started writing songs together and in 2010 morphed into Of Monsters And Men. As victors of 2010's M£siktilraunir, the new group earned a slot on the influential Iceland Airwaves festival later that year, followed by Seattle's radio station KEXP posting "Little Talks" from a Living Room Session filmed there, setting the telltale ripple effect in motion. Though their reach is growing broader, the group's appeal has remained distinct: Their music is as fantastical as it is pretty.
In 2010, Of Monsters and Men won Músiktilraunir, Iceland's nationwide battle-of-the-bands competition. For those that may not think of this as an impressive feat, keep in mind Iceland is the country that has given us the likes of Sigur Rós and Björk. Drawing early comparisons to Arcade Fire, Mumford and Sons, and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Of Monsters and Men is an alternative folk sextet led by the vocal pair Nanna Brynd&i..
First, let me say I love OMAM. The music gets five gold stars without question. All of their songs are richly layered with great vocals, percussion, strings, etc, etc. this comes through wonderfully on their CD's. Unfortunately the vinyl pressings have not done justice to the source material, at least not the copies I've bought and listened to.Maybe it's just my copies, maybe there was a drunken spider monkey in charge of quality control the day my disks rolled of..
