Comparable Contemporary: Incomparable with anyone on the air today, to the relief of everyone. Description: A nightmarish journey through a neon-coloured, mullet-sporting, Reebok-wearing wasteland. Dated Features: The slap bass, electric drums, nauseating washes of keyboards, falsetto vocals . . . hell, it’s…

Comparable Contemporary: Skunk Anansie Description: Airy, light compositions with an Eastern feel. Dated Features: Fretless bass. Rating: Your teenage sister might laugh at it, but who cares? Costs four bjórlíki, worth four.

Comparable Contemporary: Incomparable with anyone on the air today, to the envy of many wanna-bes. Description: Zig-zags thrillingly through jugband, boogie, and blues. Best played in a smoky bar occupied only by you, someone asleep at a table, and a surly bartender…

Comparable Contemporary: Daft Punk Description: Driving, bare-bones, post-new wave pop songs good enough to let you not care how uncool it is to love this album. Dated Features: Flange galore. Rating: As dated as hair mousse but a hell of a lot…

Comparable Contemporary: Trabant Description: Like trying to swallow all the candies in grandma’s dish in one gulp. Its sole redeeming track is the Devoesque “Sigurjón digri.” Dated Features: The harmonica effect on “Haustið ’75,” among others. Rating: Fun to listen to only…

Comparable Contemporary: Pink Floyd. That’s today’s Floyd, mind you. Description: Despite the cringingly bad lyrics (“I’m dreaming of making it big some day in the land of make believe”), actually not too bad for its time. Dated Features: The horn section. Rating:…

Comparable Contemporary: Bubbi Morthens Description: Mostly acoustic, with two light jazz numbers (Frósin gríma and Eina nótt í viðbótt). Dated Features: Unnecessary and formless keyboards. Rating: Would be his best album ever, if not for the keyboards. Costs four bjórlíki, worth three.

Lokbrá is a celebrated local garage-rock band. What makes something garage-rock? Typically with garage-rock you have lyrics that you don’t go around quoting, you have somewhat flat vocals, and you have lead guitar work that sounds interesting but that doesn’t quite fit,…

I’m looking at the album photos and listening to the CD, I can’t understand how Joe Cocker crawled into the body of what looks like an 18-year-old Icelandic boy. It’s not just that this young man has an outstanding range, it’s that…

This band has been mislabelled the local alt country band; their roots, especially as demonstrated here, are more 80s English and Australian pop slowed down. Most of the nine tracks on this album involve dragging one chord through a slow four count,…

When White Blood Cells came out, everyone was wondering where Jack White got such a rootsy, genuine sound. With Get Behind Me Satan, Jack finally shows his hand. It turns out the garage rock guru is an absurdly knowledgeable music historian, as…

Deep into the year 2005, we were surprised that we were asked to review this 2003 demo. What is more, we were surprised to hear the sounds of 1993 Alice in Chains coming through the speakers when we threw the disc on.…

These five kids from Hafnarfjörður, who produced this album themselves, present tight hard rock worth respect. While the guitars, often mixing palm muting with harmonics, don’t catch you by surprise, the band has the kind of timing that makes you nod your…

The winner of this year’s Icelandic Idol competition… yes, like American Idol. And World Idol. You want us to stop here? No? Okay, Hildur Vala won Icelandic Idol easily: blessed in both the beauty and voice departments, Hildur Vala seems to have…

We thought we’d take another listen to Brúðarbandið after being informed that they had recently broke the bank on a tour of the Bible Belt in the US. Everyone wants to like Brúðarbandið: they have seven members who wear wedding dresses, they…

The recent documentary on Icelandic music avoids mentioning this band, which is one of the most popular in Iceland. Which got us to thinking, maybe Í Svörtum Fötum is doing something right. Yes, they are considered a Sveitaballa (country dance) band, which…

The cover and packaging for this CD is tasteful and classic… even the small card explaining that Rollan is the result of a six day drinking bender seemed charming in such packaging. As for the music, remember 1992? These guys really do.…

Okay, so you don’t like bands with names like Graveslime. And you don’t like hard rock. Get over it. This band’s 2003 release qualifies as one of the best Icelandic albums of the last ten years. The album contains a range of…