Sloom

"Sloom" reveals the darker, more brooding underside of Of Monsters and Men's anthemic folk-pop, trading the band's stadium-sized "hey!" choruses for something murkier and more unsettled. The production builds on a tense, loping rhythm, muted guitars and a creeping low end that gives the track a nocturnal, dreamlike weight — the title itself evoking a half-sleep state. Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir's vocal is the centerpiece, fragile yet steely, painting images of waking in a sweat, of figures circling, of something menacing just out of frame. The male-female vocal trade that defines the band is present but subdued, more conspiratorial than triumphant. Lyrically it works in surreal, anxious fragments rather than narrative — bodies, blood, a sense of pursuit — leaving the dread atmospheric rather than literal. As an album track from their breakthrough debut, it shows the Icelandic group's range beyond the festival singles, the way their pastoral indie-folk could curdle into nightmare. It carries that distinctly Nordic blend of the cozy and the cold, melody as warmth, undertow as threat. Best heard in the dark, headphones on, when you want the prettiness to have teeth. It's the kind of song that rewards the listener who suspected these gentle harmonies were hiding something — proof that the band's sweetness always had a shadow trailing it.