I’ll hold my hands up and confess, my name is _____ and I’m a playlist addict. I lost interest in whole albums and turned to playlists after someone gave me my first iPod. The heady experience of listening to purely the cream of the crop. I could never go back. It’s sad really, I remember being intensely excited to have Placebo‘s Sleeping With Ghosts in my discman (that’s a long time ago…) and knowing track listings by heart. How can I slow down now?…
So I may have Shazam’ed Love Love Love by Of Monsters Of Men a few months ago, I may also have been pretty psyched when they followed me on Twitter (so it was probably a mistake but never mind). But I kind of left it at that, inserting into playlists and not reaching further. Then I had another little Shazam on Friday and another track by them came up. I took the plunge and bought the album My Head Is An Animal. As they say, no pain no gain… It’s a definite gain. A win (we know all about that this weekend… sorry to the Kiwis!).
It would be easy to dismiss My Head Is An Animal as some more acoustic guitar and twinkly pop and file it away with Ellie Goulding. But take the time to listen to the thirteen tracks they’ve kindly given us and there’s so much more going on. The twinkly bits are actually just superb instrumentation. Not one to shy away from leftfield, there’s a definite Icelandic (mostly because that’s where they hail from) feel. Think Bjork or Sigur Ros in slightly off-the-wall lyrics and choral vocals. The male/female interchange is really good; achieving the sort of conversation that Arcade Fire have honed over the years. Definitely don’t get bogged down on comparisons though, try and see them live – they were so packed out at Latitude, you know they’re something good…
Reverting back to album listening, highlights for me are track 01, track 02 and track 09…
THATSWHATWETHOUGHT 