Reykjavík!

I've been looking for a new punk band to obsess over for some time now. A real, live punk band, without synths and haircuts and tight jeans and makeup, a punk band you can believe in, and won't let you down past their first single or headline show. Well, it turns out I had to turn to Iceland to find one, and they're called Reykjavik!.

Sounding like a melange of Nirvana, McLusky, Braid and Rage Against the Machine, but without ripping any of them off, Reykjavik! will reinvigorate your take on alternative music with their absolute death-grip on timing, angular guitars (oh, how I have missed that phrase!) and jumping about onstage screaming. They played their first ever NYC show Monday night at Pianos, and it was as if Mission of Burma had traveled in time from 1981 to the present day and decided to rip the entire galaxy a new one. Performing a cover of David Bowie's "Changes", lead singer Boas Hallgrimsson decided to perform his larynx-busting vocals from a stool in the middle of the crowd, while the rest of the band sang along while bashing the shit out of their instruments onstage.

Glacial Landscapes, Religion, Oppression, and Alcohol, Reykjavk's debut album on 12 Tonar Records, features songs like "7-9-13", "I Am God to My Friends" and, brilliantly, "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons". Each one is a perfect little sour nugget of what rock music should be: fast, vicious, fun and completely overwhelming. Let Reykjavik! change your life.

http://www.supmag.com/checkit/archives/2007/03/reykjavik_news.html - 'Sup Magazine

Reykjavík!, an ragtag rock crew named for the city they call home, definitely earn their exclamation point(s), making an explosive pile of messy, spastic, joyous fun (their ridiculous set at by:Larm a few months ago was one of the Norwegian festival’s best). The quintet’s 2006 debut Glacial Landscapes, Religion, Oppression and Alcohol has been championed by David Fricke, but otherwise missed the stateside glory it deserves. Adding time-based conceptualism to the slapdash spirit of the earlier collection’s kinetics (while ably mirroring, mocking and embracing the bullshit real-time requirements of the today-is-the-day blogosphere), the upchucked three-song EP Dirty Weekend With Reykjavík! was put to tape, mixed and mastered in 12-hours flat and released the next day. (Árni +1 of FM Belfast/Hairdoctor concurrently sweat out a full-on remix). Opener, “Flybus!,” also deserving of its exclamation point, was named for the bus that takes tourists between Keflavik Airport and the city. It has enough starts and stops to mirror the actual trek, and a compulsively sloppy hook that ought to please fans of an booze-soaked Blood Brothers garage party. A peanut gallery of sounds (baby laughs, grown-man laughs/screams, Cagean silence) connotes a rambunctious silliness but there’s a seriously smart ass-kicking punch and evolutionary storyline (“We don’t climb trees anymore, no/But we climb social ladders, though”) backing the giggles.

-Brandon Stosuy - Paperthinwalls.com

*****

Fuldskabens black-out er bonus til tømmermændene. Man er gerne noget loren ved at få at vide, hvad der foregik i hukommelsens sorte hul. Reykjavik! har et bud.

Island er Atlanterhavets tørre spytklat midt imellem musikkulturens to store forter, England og USA. Både geografisk og musikalsk finder Reykjavik! hjemme der. Bandets kaotiske punk eller rock’n’roll lægger sig et sted mellem The Clash og Buzzcocks mod øst og Ramones og The Stooges mod vest.

De seneste års stormflod af bands, der finder inspiration i slutningen af halvfjerdserne, er tilsyneladende altædende. Der er efterhånden ganske mange svipsere imellem. En god del af dem bestræber sig nemlig på at læne sig godt og grundigt op ad forbillederne. Reykjavik! fejler fuldstændig på dét punkt. De bekymrer sig vist ikke synderligt om hverken attitude eller forbilleder. Tværtimod spiller de bare forrykt og uprætentiøs rock, der ikke selv har nogen idé om, om det er artrock eller ølrock.

Koncerten lagde ud med fuzztoner fra bandets bassist, der lignede en Pearl Jam-fan fra starthalvfemserne. Derefter blev der ikke pustet ud, knap nok mellem sangene, hvor der var tid til at invitere publikum til slagsmål, og til at bede lydmanden skrue op til mindst 11. Der var også beretninger om Islands infrastruktur, som ikke omfatter tog, om gårsdagens prostituerede i København, og tre gange blev forsangerens kones telefonnummer afsløret med koncertens tydeligste diktion.

Mikrofonen røg af ledningen i et Roger Daltrey-stunt, to gange røg remmen af henholdsvis guitar og bas, så musikerne var overladt til at tæske med højre hånd på venstre hånds boksepude af træ og strenge. Sangeren fimstrede rundt blandt publikum. Den ene guitarist tog sig flere gange til hovedet, som fik et par gevaldige skrubs. Ikke kun fra hans egne hænder, men også fra forsangerens i en afsluttende brydekamp.

Det var underholdende, men det tog ikke fokus fra musikken. Der var enkelte sange, der kun var halvstærke, men de blev alle fremført hektisk og hæsblæsende og under vild fuldskab. Allermest befriende var dog Reykjavik!s totale ligegyldighed over for attitudens og black-outets dårlige samvittigheds tyranni.

Af Filip Granlie - Gaffa.dk

*******
Nur selten gibt eine Band ihr Innerstes derart freimütig preis wie Reykjavik!: Wer wissen will, woher sie kommen, der schaue einfach auf ihren Bandnamen. Wen interessiert, wie sie ihre Zeit rumkriegen, der lese gleich weiter zum Albumtitel. Und wer sich fragt, wofür ein Keilerkopf eine Blechgießkanne mit sich herumträgt, dem spucken auf Promofotos quaddelweiß gesoffene Gesichter Nahrungssäfte vor die Füße. Irgendwer muss, wenn Reykjavik! die Wohnung verlassen haben, die Schweinerei schließlich wieder aufwischen. Egal, ob rosa Elefanten, Menschen mit Wildschweinköpfen oder gleich Tine Wittler, Hauptsache: Alles wird (wieder) gut!

Reykjavik! fallen also mit der Tür ins Haus und verwüsten bald darauf das Oberstübchen. Ihre Musik zickt und ziert sich nicht, kommt gleich auf das Ausrufezeichen. "Glacial landscapes, religion, oppression & alcohol" präsentiert mit Brit-Punk-Pop und Hardcore verätzten Noise-Rock, bei dem man irgendwie vergessen zu haben scheint, die Bassspur in die Summe zu mischen. Es quietscht, klingelt, klirrt und schadengelt munter vor sich hin, den Druck von hinten übernimmt der tiefere Mittenbereich. Dass sich die Songs dabei nicht zwischen all dem Klanggerümpel verlieren, liegt vor allem an dem rechten Verhältnis zwischen mentalen Aussetzern und konzentrierter Hitattitüde. Sprich: Reykjavik! finden stets die Perlen im Heu(l)haufen, um sie postwendend vor die Säu(r)e zu werfen.

Während "7-9-13" und "You always kill" echte Killerriffs zu Metallstaub zerbröseln, möchte man Songs wie "Ted Danson" und "Oberon" zunächst wie eine lärmende Kinderparty mit der Flinte aus dem Hinterhof schießen, bevor man reumütig feststellt, dass so immerhin mal ein bisschen Leben in die Bude kommt. Ein gespielter Witz wie "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" darf auf der Party dann ebenso wenig fehlen, wie das ein oder andere Lamento, das sich die Tränen mit rostigen Fingernägeln aus den Augenhöhlen pult. Was Sänger Bóas dazu zu sagen hat, verschwindet oftmals zwischen Schnappatmung, Dosenschießen und Hyperventilation. Bereits heiser auf die Welt gekommen, dürfte er sogleich Hebamme und Entbindungssaal kettensägend in handliche Stücke zerlegt haben. Getreu dem Motto "Man hat's nicht leicht, aber leicht hat's einen" wird eine Verheißung wie "I'm gonna show you a really good time" so zur Venusfalle, die doch nur Köpfe rollen sehen will. Und beim eigenen mit Wonne beginnt.

Ein wenig Mut gehört also aufgebracht für "Glacial landscapes, religion, oppression & alcohol". Belohnt wird der Hörer dafür mit Musik, die alles sein kann, was sein Zappelphilipp-Herz begehrt. Und all das Kleinholz um einen herum lässt sich mit Tines Hilfe bestimmt munter zusammenkehren und wieder aneinander pappen. Ansonsten zieht man halt einfach um. Mit den Nachbarn hat man es sich wegen dieser Kindersache ja ohnehin verscherzt.

Tobias Hinrichs

Highlights:
7-9-13; You always kill; Ted Danson - Plattentests.de

'[...]crammed into a tiny performing space at the 12 Tonar record store, Reykjavik! earned that exclamation point with more contained and addictive abandon, like a Nineties Sub Pop version of the Dead Boys -- with their own crowd-surfing Stiv Bators in singer Boas Hallgrimsson -- in both the cover mayhem of David Bowie's "Changes" and the shredded-Cheap Trick original "All Those Beautiful Boys." Reykjavik!'s debut album on 12 Tonar is called Glacial Landscapes, Religion, Oppression and Alcohol -- a concise description of what it's like to be teenage here and why so many bands sound so good.'

-David Fricke, Rolling Stone magazine - Rolling Stone Magazine

”I’d like especially to welcome all members of the foreign press and record company executives. We love music!” exclaimed Reykjavík!s cardigan-clad singer-guitarist as his five-piece band took the stage. Easily the loudest band of the evening (if not the loudest band in all of Iceland), Reykjavík! dropped punk barnburners that set the singer’s throaty vocals – one part Thom Yorke, three parts desperate screech – over speedy, deftly syncopated stomp, with the guitarist shouting coarse interjections like an Icelandic Flava Flav. Their salvo of jagged guitars and desperate wailing was sometimes hard to take, but during some well-conceived passages – especially when the singer and guitarist engaged in some syncopated call-and-response – it was clear that Reykjavík! would have set a smaller venue on fire.

-Christian Hoard
- The Reykjavik Grapevine

„I was further dismayed when I checked the programme to discover that pompous revivalists Jet Black Joe were next, but at least one of them had been delayed for whatever reason, and thus we were spoon-fed the third and final exercise in complete and spontaneous onstage awesomeness. Reykjavík! were an immense fireball, a sickeningly brilliant reconstruction of modern rock so majestic and pure that it was difficult to watch and even harder to describe.
Singer Bóas was the first thing to get one’s attention, tearing off article after article of clothing as he defied gravity with his desperate bounds and scrambles and provided the perfect visual aid to the searing madness that is Reykjavík!’s music. But it was guitarist Haukur who made my day, personally. The entire band is obviously blessed with a wholehearted love of what they do, but Haukur positively glowed with it.“

-Sindri Eldon
- The Reykjavik Grapevine

"That more-to-be-had is presented in no uncertain manner by Reykjavik! at Grand Rokk. The five piece may present obvious hardcore stylings in their armoury, but they have a heck of a lot more. Furious grinding guitars and a propulsive rythmn section are complemented by a front man who looks not unlike a young Zach de la Rocha throwing himself about the stage and beyond with great aplomb. Really rather fabulous."

-n/a

"Reykjavik!; Our most favourite band from DiS' visit to the Iceland Airwaves Festival last October."

-n/a - Drownedinsound.com

For an album bearing Iceland’s identifying hallmarks as its title, Reykjavík!’s debut is surprisingly un-Icelandic, especially in its frenetic and swerving mood swings and crackling, yet minimal energy, making fast trademarks of alienated, ironic mockery, twangy, harried guitars and the hellish croaks that are Bóas’s vocals. The dizzying and malicious desperation of stunners Blame It On Gray, All Those Beautiful Boys and Dragonsmell are pure irreverent genius, and the album itself has a well-rounded balance of unpredictability and solid, decisive direction. Reykjavík!’s tour through the weirdness of their own minds drifts off-course only to make room for the misguided hi-hat-fuelled hipness of songs like 7-9-13, Marlboro Friday and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and the near-impossible difficulty of packaging Reykjavík!’s manic live performance on record. And, speaking of packages, Brynhildur Þorgeirsdóttir’s cover photograph is a slice of satirical and surreal brilliance, by far the best thing to grace an Icelandic album cover in recent years.

SE

- The Reykjavik Grapevine

Since Iceland's native tongue is Icelandic, it would do no good to post the intense amounts of good publicity Reykjavík! has received since it's inception. Suffice to say that all the Icelandic papers think Reykjavík! is cool. - All of them