Los Angeles radio station Alt 98.7 is hosting their one-day festival event, Alt Summer Camp, in Long Beach, California on Saturday, August 3. I recently saw the poster of their line-up and decided I would use these bands for a series of posts under “Music New to My Ears.” I’m going to be starting at the top of the list and working my way down.
A couple years ago a friend tipped me off to the sounds of the Icelandic band Of Monsters and Men by sharing a video with me. Of course, I’d already heard “Little Talks” on the airwaves, but it was always the experience that I’d hear it without catching the band name. So it was at this point that I finally matched the two together. I haven’t consciously listened to their music since that day that I went down the YouTube rabbit hole clicking from one Of Monsters and Men video to another. In early May, they released a single from their forthcoming new album, which will be out at the end of July, shortly before they will play at Alt Summer Camp. Today, I am listening to this single, “Alligator,” and sharing my impressions as I hear it for the first time.
by Of Monsters and Men from the album Fever Dream
This is Music New to My Ears
The slow repetitive build of sound at the beginning of the song is reminiscent of the sound that accompanies a railroad crossing arm descending to stop traffic and the train blowing its horn as it barrels through. The vocal opens with singer, Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir narrating, “I see color raining down…” as the kick drum beats steadily and heavy underneath and the guitar continues along a monotone line. As the song progresses, guitar embellishments are added over the top of the palette of noise like exclamation points added at the end of a sentences to convey excitement. There are some licks of guitar feedback, a couple strategic chord changes, and the guitar bouncing back and forth from the left to the right headphone channels, leaving me feeling like my ears were watching a tennis match. Frankly, the melody line is boring and forgettable and the singer’s vocal fry on lines such as “let it all come out” and “grew before my eyes” is unappealing. (Dear pop singers, can we please be done with vocal fry? Thanks.) I like the change of rhythm in the middle and the end of the song after the line “I’m fever dreaming.”
Let’s Enter the Lyrics Laboratory
As I look at the lyrics along with listening to the song, I hope that it will help me make greater sense of the soundscape.
Hah, hah
Lyrics by Of Monsters and Men/Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir
I see color raining down
Feral feeling, swaying sound
But I don’t know what you want
I am open and I am restless
Let me feel it out
Let it all come out
Wake me up, I’m fever dreaming
And now I lose control, I’m fever dreaming
Shake it out, it’s just what I’m feeling
And now I take control, I’m fever dreaming
I’m fever-dreaming
Oh-so quiet, when they laid me in the stream
And the starlit sky grew before my eyes
Twenty-two women stood by the banks
And cried, oh I
Wake me up, I’m fever dreaming
And now I lose control, I’m fever dreaming
Shake it out, it’s just what I’m feeling
And now I take control, I’m fever dreaming
I’m fever dreaming
I must be fever dreaming
I’m fever dreaming
The song seems to be about fever dreaming, which I am interpreting as that awful feeling you have when you are sick, can’t sleep well, have weird vivid dreams you can’t escape from, and wake up so sweaty that your pajamas feel like they were taking a bath while you slept. I am not sure where the title “Alligator” comes in, perhaps she is dreaming about one or maybe in her fever state she feels like an alligator thrashing around in shallow water. I’m not really connecting the music to the subject matter at all. The music sounds like something you would jump up and down to at a concert or a dance club. Music that would accompany my own fever dreams would be a lot more eccentric, unexpected, and filled with space — something more like Pink Floyd’s “Is There Anybody Out There?” The sound on “Alligator” seems too controlled, despite lyrics to the contrary: “feral,” “restless” and the singing of the line “and now I lose control” (though it is paired with “I take control”). Having said that, the driving pace does capture a kind of madness.
That’s a Wrap
Honestly, I was disappointed in this song. It started off like it could have turned into something cool, but it sped down the runway and failed to take off. Given the subject, the band missed the chance here for a more dynamic interplay among the instruments and the vocal lines could have been much more dramatic. It also misses the magic of some of their other songs where the female and male voices duet so well. Maybe some of it is the fault of the music production. In any case, I almost want to see a different band cover this song and see what they could do to it as the subject certainly has potential.
If you think you might enjoy the music from Of Monsters and Men, You Make My World Rock encourages purchasing the music of the artists in order to allow them to continue to create. The previous release from Of Monsters and Men was their 2015 album Beneath the Skin.