Jakobinarina

are from Iceland. This isn’t particularly relevant beyond the fact that upon listening you will instantly think they should “foreign” and may be curious as to where they are from. They are all between 16 and 20 too, but they don’t sound young. They sound like a band who have been doing this years, both in technical ability and, more noticably, the sound that manages to rise from the singer’s vocal chords.

This is a band that wants to rock pretty hard, and they do so, most of the their songs over and done with in two minutes. They are also very playful though, which is what wins me over most. This Is An Advertisement cynically tackles the marketing culture in music (“We would even change our name to the Coca Cola band just to get our pockets filled”) while His Lyrics Are Disastrous is made all the more charming by the fact that it’s one of their weakest songs lyrically. Whether or not this is deliberate or a happy accident caused by writing songs in a second language, I don’t know.

MP3 Jakobinarina – This Is An Advertisement (expired)

Below are the videos for both This Is An Advertisement and His Lyrics Are Disastrous. It should be noted that discovering a band that sounds like this look like a bunch of 15 year olds may be mildly disturbing.

Jakobinarina’s debut album, entitled The First Crusade, was released a few weeks ago on EMI/Parlophone.

Jakobinarina: Website || Myspace