Album Review: Of Monsters & Men - Beneath The Skin

The best laid schemes often go awry. Icelandic band Of Monsters & Men here return with the follow-up to their timely debut album, My Head Is An Animal. The record remains a key touchstone for anyone wanting to know what pop music sounded like in the early half of this decade. Since then, it seems the band hasn’t changed much. However, as its title would suggest, Beneath The Skin is a more sombre affair than its predecessor.

Beneath The Skin is comparable to Mumford & Sons latest album, Wilder Mind, in a number of ways. Firstly, the titles of both these recent records seem to imply or suggest a deeper or more serious level of introspection. The cheery sounds and bright trumpets of these bands’ earlier releases have been replaced with a post-great-recession seriousness, or at least the sheen of sincerity. This has meant that the folk instruments and the simpler times they evoke have been left back in the dusty attics in which they were found, replaced now with the loud and grey sounds of electric guitars.

There are similarly more thunderous drums and crescendos this time around, and some moody strings to heighten the instrumental melodrama. The album was produced by Rich Costey, who’s previously worked with other groups searching for this sense of stadium-ready solemnity. Organs is the quietest moment on the album, and while it’s easy to see it as the token acoustic track, it’s also a reminder that the band can sound perfectly sincere once the background noise is stripped away.