Jun282015June 28, 2015June 28, 20151Commentby Bake
of-monsters-and-men-skin

Of Monsters and Men | Beneath the Skin

Posted in Music

Seeing this band live last month was a pretty good preview for what this album was going to sound like. It’s bigger, darker, and moodier than their debut My Head is an Animal. Also, they stopped talking about the woods so much. I loved the catchy indie-folk-pop sound of their first album, but it did seem like every track was about animals and the woods. Metaphorically at least. I’m sure it wasn’t about actual wolves and trees all the time. Unless wolves are like squirrels running rampant in Iceland. In that case, I will never understand where this band is coming from but respect them for having survived this long.

While they lyrically trade out the woods for the water on this album, three songs into Beneath the Skin, we are introduced to the wolves again, this time in “Hunger”: I will be the wolf/and when you’re starving/you’ll need it too. The next track is titled “Wolves Without Teeth” and talks about running from wolves again. They know wolves generally avoid people and that humans are the real predator of the two right? Oh well. Throughout the album they are still exploring those human/animal comparisons. In “Human” lead vocalists Nanna and Raggi sing: Cage me like an animal/a crown with gems and gold/eat me like a cannibal/chase the neon throne. I can’t knock them too much, since I couldn’t write a song to save my life, but I did wonder where the attraction to animal themes come from. According to this interview, their two lyricists find it easier to write songs together that are like fairy tales. Come to think of it, I do remember a disproportionate amount of stories involving wolves as a kid. Fucking Europeans and their lupophobia.

Of Monsters and Men’s sound does seem to lend itself better to fantastical tales and allegories than say rocking out about getting drunk or another unnecessary break up song. Their dual lead singers and whole band backing harmonies, their pronounced horn section, and their overall big, arena-filling, echoing sound feels like it serves a greater cause. There is an early-U2 element to this band where you couldn’t listen to a song like “Where the Streets Have No Name” and imagine it being played in a small club: it needs to be loud, inspiring the listeners as it bounces off stadium walls. Wait, do stadiums have walls? No matter, their “wall of sound” sound gets a little darker on Beneath the Skin primarily due to increased electrical guitar, bass, and especially percussion. “Thousand Eyes” shows their reliance on the bass drum and making things go boom. It leads into the marching drums of “I of the Storm” but then comes back louder on the closer “We Sink”, where you can tell the bass drum begs for synchronized clapping from their audience. From the opening track and lead single “Crystals” to the end of the album the big drums maybe be looping or beating through your chest, but there are always present.

To accompany the loud drums we have words of despair like “I’m drowning, I’m drowning” repeated over and over to end their song “Hunger”. This is what I mean when I say this album is darker. If it was just a bigger sound it could be inspirational for good, but all the imagery created from their lyrics are bad experiences related to water. In “Organs”, you have I guess I could swim for days in the salty sea/but in the end the waves will discolor me. In “Empire”: Feel the ocean as its breathes, shivering teeth/See the mountains where they meet, smothering me/As the wind fends off the waves, I count down the days, Heavy Stones, fear no weather. Drowning, waves, rivers, rains, tides, swimming, sailing, floating, the ocean, and the sea. And that’s just from the first half of the record. Track number eight, “Black Water” is one of my favorite new songs and of course focuses on the cold, dark water. It’s chorus: Swallowed by a vicious, vengeful sea/Darker days are raining over me/In the deepest depths I lost myself/See myself through somewhere else. Even the “oooh oooh aaahh oohhhs” breaking up the lines of the chorus can’t brighten its message.

“Thousand Eyes” and “ I of the Storm” on the the 2nd half of the album make references to, well, a storm. They are followed by the aforementioned drum heavy last song, “We Sink”, which talks of sinking into the open sea. I don’t know what inspired all these words of aquatic doom but I’m guessing its just the age-old metaphorical value of having something as powerful as the ocean or a storm that they needed to pair with their huge sound and thunderous vocals to feel like a good fit. I can dig this as the water album and the previous as the woods album, as long as whatever they do next moves on to their next theme. If round three is about drowning or wolves again I might start to get bored but for now I’m going to enjoy this band and this album.

 

The Drink: Salt Water.

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Bake

I'm nothing. Maybe less than nothing. I also write.
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