Of Monsters and Men
Beneath the Skin
(Republic Records)
The anthemic pop rock Of Monsters and Men pounds out is destined for Coldplay-sized stadium crowds. The band’s songs lean on thundering drums, huge hooks, and wholehearted harmonies, and the formula has been paying off. The quintet’s 2011 debut album My Head is an Animal went platinum in the U.S. and swept international charts, and they’ve been touring ever since.
But the band hails from Keflavík, Iceland — a village of just over 8,000 people — and something of the cold rocky coast hasn’t left them. Ghostly choral riffs, washed-out electric guitars, and chilly string arrangements flood their second album, paring down some of the overdone folksy coziness that pervaded their first. How very Icelandic, to feel your soaring act of passion swallowed up in a cold expanse.
That country is a rough-hewn one, but it’s also soaked in mysticism. Roughly half the population still believes in the presence of huldufolk, or “hidden people” — yes, as in elves. And you can imagine they’re the ones ringing those tinkling bells during the chorus of the propulsive song “Human” as the perfectly paired vocalists Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir and Ragnar Pórhallsson chant “Breathe in, breathe out, let the human in.”
It’s a homesick call for normalcy, and it becomes a mantra on Beneath the Skin. Hilmarsdóttir is clearly going through some growing pains on her defiant, Cranberries-esque ballad “I Of The Storm,” where she sings of “all my thoughts and all my faults/ I feel it biting/ I feel it break my skin.” The story takes an even darker turn on the clap-along ditty “Black Water,” which has her “swallowed by a vicious, vengeful sea/ darker days are raining over me.”
This steely new sense of focus is burnished by producer Rich Costey, who can inject deep, echoing pools of sound into the tiniest nooks and crannies — his collaborations have lately leaned electronic, with Foster The People, Chvrches, Kimbra, and Phantogram — and although Beneath the Skin marks no large departure from Of Monsters and Men’s previous work, it better balances and blends the band’s giddy love for both the icy and the intimate. These 11 well-crafted tracks swirl awestruck sound around a hot, thumping heartbeat. Listening to them feels like visiting a bonfire in a blizzard.•
