Of Monsters And Men
My Head Is An Animal

I admit to approaching this album with a certain lightness and an eyebrow more arched than usual: it could be that the new indie-folk wave has always attracted me like not even a sextape with La Russa feat. Gelmini could, but I’ve always stayed a little away from the phenomenon that for some time now has been raging on radios and charts worldwide (a little less on ours, to be honest).

The Icelandic Of Monsters and Men, a sextet led by the guitars and voices of the unpronounceable Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir and Ragnar Þórhallsson, joined forces in 2010 and participated in an annual contest aimed at discovering new talents and, as luck would have it, they won. From there, it was a crescendo of radio appearances and popularity that led them to the release, in August 2011, of their first album entitled "My Head is an Animal", re-released the following year by Universal, which ensured them greater visibility following the smashing single ‘‘Little Talks’’.

The album even debuted at no.6 on the American Billboard, selling nearly seven hundred thousand copies in the US market alone to date.

‘‘My Head is an Animal’’ opens with the excellent ‘‘Dirty Paws’’, a track that immediately marks the stylistic choices of the combo: delicate arpeggios over which the vocal harmonizations of the two, excellent, singers unfold on carpets woven with so much melody. Melody which is also present in the subsequent and fairy-tale ‘‘King and Lionheart’’, sung almost entirely by Nanna (which, however, is not an incentive to fall asleep while listening to it). ‘‘Mountain Sound’’, the first of the two tracks present in the 2012 reissue, livens and accelerates the sonic beats; ska rhythms in the famous (also among us) ''Little Talks'', a song I personally appreciated just right but acknowledge a certain catchiness, with the two taking turns on vocals before joining in a tremendously catchy chorus. We enter the second part of the album, which is personally my favorite: ‘‘Love Love Love’’ with an intro that reminds me a lot of Yann Tiersen, it is a splendid love song with a bittersweet taste (‘‘You love love love when You know I can’t love’’); ‘‘Your Bones’’, a track with an almost epic flavor that opens with verses sung almost entirely a cappella, reminds us that everything changes over time, even ourselves but what really matters is never to lose oneself (‘‘Hold on to what we are, hold on to your heart’’’); ‘‘Sloom’’, my favorite, is a light and delicate poem that they dedicate to their loved ones inviting them to love them even more despite everything, because as we grow up, each of us tries with all our will to become a better person (‘‘to be a better man’’).

The Of Monsters and Men have made a debut that, personally, I appreciated very much. 

Skillfully moving between Arcade Fire, Fleet Foxes, and The xx and leveraging their own, simple, strengths, they have crafted a light (in the positive sense of the term), tremendously melodic, and at times even poetic product. It could be that a breeze of spring has finally arrived here in high Terronia for a few days now, it could be that I too, like Pif (who has recently dedicated an episode of Il Testimone to this fascinating land), have a certain penchant for blondes, but I approve them and with flying colors. And in June, I'm going to see them in France too, maybe with the story of the Italian abroad and a few more glasses of beer down the stomach, the blonde might really fall for it.