The Icelandic indie-band consisting of Daníel, Gunnar and Ragnar have released their 8th studio album ‘BLIK’ aufter a couple of already released singles – ‘Let’s pretend’ is one of them which we reviewed already.
The basis for the songs is often a classic pop song strcuture that shows their love for harmonies. Then they have the flexibilty to put the song into a instrumental world – sometimes it is pure indie, sometimes more classical with strings, sometimes in Icelandic more often in English. Sometimes very stripped down, sometimes with more electronic beats or synths.
Obviously you can do this only with a igh quality of the songs – and there they deliver massively!
No wonder that a jury consiting of Tom Waits, The Cure’s Robet Smith and Beth Gibbons (Portishead) rated their album ‘Nivalis’ as ‘Indie-ALbum of the year’ at the Independent Music Awards in 2019.
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With ‘A new tomorrow‘ we get a an uplifting song with a very smart almost acoustic setting – a timeless song that is so damn catchy.
‘The Wave‘ in it’s mid-tempo style shows the unbelievable vocal harmony skills of the guys. With a great choir and strings this brings in vibes of the fellow Icelsandic band Sigur Ros – yet Árstíðir have a much more poppier apprach to the songs.
With ‘Let’s pretend’ they have a song out in a style that we totally didn’t expect: With a slow 4-to-the-floor beat and xylophone-melodies they are almost in the style of the german techno marching-band MEUTE. But then you have the great melodies and vocals over the instrumental setting that point straight towards the pop-direction. This a pleasure to listen to.
Other songs like ‘Home Pt.2‘ manage to create that certain feeling that you drive through Iceland on the way ome and just let the stunning landscape fly by.
Live-Tour
Árstíðir will be doing a live tour in Europe in November – this will be great!:
präsentiert von Kulturnews
13.11. Oberhausen – Zentrum Altenberg
14.11. (LUX) Dudelange – Centre Culturel Régional Opderschmelz
15.11. Köln – Kulturkirche
16.11. Hamburg – Christianskirche
17.11. Berlin – Prachtwerk
20.11. Dresden – Filmtheater Schauburg
23.11.(AT) Wien – Theater am Spittelberg
24.11.(CH) Rorschach – Industrie36
25.11. Frankfurt – Brotfabrik
26.11. Neunkirchen – Gebläsehalle Neunkirchen
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Photo by Hörður Sveinsson
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Rating
Review
This is one of the best new music that comes from Iceland this year, high-class music of people who really know what they are doing. Great strings, uplifting and intense melodies and their vocals on top all this – they have found their musical space and no one can deliver in this.