Of Mice and Men ? Not Quite.

Of Monsters and Men live at Stor Vega

When I turned up at the Of Monsters and Men concert at Stor Vega last night, I must admit that my expectations were rather high. The Chamber Pop sextet have been hogging Blog space on the internet lately, spurred by amongst other things, their recently dropped album My Head is an Animal. If their performance yesterday is anything to go by, this is a band with huge potential and an amazing live act at that. We're talking about a band that sounds strangely similar to Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros fused with Mumford & Sons and a tinge of Arcade Fire just to complicate things.

Fellow Icelander Lay Low was on hand to provide a wonderful warm-up on the evening, playing a dextrous blend of powerful songs intermeshed with snippets of witty humour, proving why she's had the honour of touring with the likes of Emiliana Torrini. Of Monsters and Men stepped onto the stage illuminated by a fiery red glow and proceeded to sweep Stor Vega off its feet. Lead singer Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir seemed thrilled with the soaring quantities of Icelanders at Vega and proceeded to engage them in her native tongue before unleashing tracks such as the up-tempo, jovial 'Mountain song'. An unexpected cover of 'Skeletons' by trendy garage rock New Yorkers The Yeah Yeah Yeah's thereafter added a fresh wave of variation to the concert whilst sing-along gems such as 'From Finner' got the crowd jumping.

Unsurprisingly, the highlight of the show came when the anthemic 'Little Talks' was dropped towards the end. The song a epitomises the chamber-pop sound that the band have managed to cultivate over their short but sparkling career and featured a short but perfectly timed trumpet solo that accentuated its jolly effect.

Led by the vocals of the subliminal Ragnar Pórhallsson and Hilarsdottir, Of Monsters and Men were sharp from the word go, playing with ear to ear grins and with a real bond to the crowd, in spite of the usual unresponsiveness one has become accustomed to on the part of the Danish audience. Nowhere was this bond more candid than at the very end of the show, as the Icelanders parted from the stage, with the dreamy, contemplative chimes and ticks of the final track 'Yellow Light' ringing in the audience's ears who by this point were in merry spirits.