Of Monsters and Men

Of Monsters and Men were an Icelandic rock band who began as part of the folk boom of the early 2010s, but set themselves apart from their bearded and vested brethren with a panoramic emotional depth that conjured up ethereal imagery as breathtaking as their home country's scenic vistas, earning them an international fanbase and making them arguably the most popular band that Iceland has ever produced. In 2009, Nanna Brydnis Hilmarsdottir was living in Reykjavik and pursuing a solo project called Songbird. However, Nanna soon decided that she wanted to collaborate, so she went about putting a band together to play the songs she had written on acoustic guitar. After recruiting singer/guitarist/melodica/glockenspiel player Ragnar "Raggi" Porhallsson, lead guitarist Brynjar Leifsson, and percussionist/melodica/glockenspiel player Arnar Rosenkranz Hilmarsson, Nanna decided to change the name of what was now a full band. Raggi suggested the name Of Monsters and Men, and it stuck. In this four-piece lineup, Of Monsters and Men played the 2010 Musiktilraunir, an annual Icelandic nationwide music competition. Afterwards, they added two new members: bassist Kristjan Pall Kristjansson, and accordionist/keyboardist Arni Gudjonsson, and played a set at the 2010 Iceland Airwaves Festival, where they also played a living room session for the Seattle-based radio station KEXP, which earned them their first stateside notices. In February of 2011, the band signed a deal with the Icelandic label Record Records and began crafting their debut album. By August of that year, the Philadelphia radio station Radio 104.5 began playing their first single, "Little Talks," which became a surprise hit. Of Monsters and Men's debut album, My Head Is an Animal (2012), was released in Iceland that September to wide acclaim and number one sales. Meanwhile, the band's popularity in North America was growing rapidly, riding a wave that had swept up a number of fellow rambunctious folk acts including Mumford & Sons, The Lumineers, and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes. A stopgap EP, "Into the Woods" (2011) was released to drum up anticipation. That summer, the band played all over North America, including stops at the Newport Folk Festival, Osheaga Festival, and Lollapalooza, before touring Europe. Once the tour ended, Arni left the group to go back to school. On May 4, 2013, Of Monsters and Men were the musical guests on "Saturday Night Live" (NBC, 1975-), hot off of appearing at Coachella; performances at Bonnaroo, Glastonbury, and Lollapalooza Brazil and Chile were to follow. Once the tour ended, the band regrouped back in Reykjavik and began working on their sophomore album. They took their time; did not even begin recording until November of the following year. The music on Beneath the Skin (2015) was darker and more subdued, but still the record debuted at number 3 on the U.S. Billboard 200. A North American tour ran from August through October of 2015, and the band played Coachella the following April. By the end of 2017, Of Monsters and Men had become the first band in Iceland to hit one billion streams on Spotify, proving that they had become a worldwide sensation. However, Nanna was starting to feel boxed in by the band's soaring folk sound and decided to experiment with writing songs on a laptop as opposed to her usual acoustic guitar. This lead to songs that had elements of electronic dance music, with driving beats and shiny synths, while still maintaining the classic epic whimsy that had become Of Monsters and Men's calling card. On July 26, 2019, the band's third album, Fever Dream (2019), was released, becoming their third album in a row to chart in the U.S. Billboard top ten.