Photo: Richard Gray

Of Monsters and Men formed five years ago, and like Mumford and Sons, have helped pedal guitar music’s drift away from punk brashness to the safe, twee haven of melodic, chorus driven folk. They’ve capitalised on it too this crowd love it, as the sold out sign covering The Forum proves.

The sing-along inoffensiveness pricks the ears of the casual music listener, the type who prefer Spotify playlists over full length records. But listen to OMOM closely, and it becomes difficult to shake the feeling that this Icelandic five-piece, with their darting moments of experimentation, are capable of more. On tonight’s evidence it appears the band feel the same.

Joint lead vocalist Nanna Hilmarsdóttir strides on stage and abruptly plays the drone rock enthused ‘Thousand Years’, an arresting, brooding intro to their recently released Beneath the Skin LP, played live in London for the first time tonight. The strings and drums, djembe included, are climactic and dangerous. This five-piece want to give their monster more venomous bite, a concept they find themselves wrestling with throughout the show. Take ‘King and the Lionheart’, a track symbolic of the sound that dominated their debut, it flows easily, and is a loving ode from Nana to her little brother about their parents filing for divorce, but grows indistinguishable alongside ‘Dirty Paws’.

In this live setting, the chanting opportunities lead to roars and much clapping along, yet a missing sense of individuality leaves these ears wanting, and the lyricism gets swamped in the mix. This makes the contrast between the sound of the new record even stronger.

'I Of The Storm points to a new minimalism'. Guitars soar with a new sense of physicality on ‘Empire’ and ‘Wolves without Teeth’, and dive with into dance beats during ‘Black Water’. For the most part however, we are stuck in between two worlds, Kristján Kristjánsson and Brynjar Leifsson desperate to put their skills to full use.

Tonight showed a promising drive to explore, but in closing with ‘Silhouettes’, their smash hit effort for Hunger Games franchise and very much their trademark sound, it’s easy to see why they are currently neither men nor monster, but tentatively considering transition. It could be something fierce.

Of Monsters & Men played:

Thousand Eyes
Human
King and Lionheart
Slow and Steady
Empire
Hunger
Wolves Without Teeth
Mountain Sound
I of the Storm
Black Water
Crystals
Lakehouse
Little Talks
Six Weeks

Encore:
Dirty Paws
Silhouettes
We Sink

Below: More exclusive of Of Monsters & Men live at The Forum