I featured a song by the beloved Québécois folk-rock band on the fourth weekly update of this website. Mere days after the update, the band released a surprise new studio album, Pub Royal, containing songs written for the musical of same name as well as brand new tracks. Hearing Karl's unforgettable voice again touched the hearts of the entire francophonie.

While this poignant 7-minute epic was one of those that first appeared in the musical Pub Royal, it is obviously meant to be a tribute to Karl. There is a clip of him recording the vocals for this song that is heart-wrenching: just imagine having cancer, weakened and knowing you don't have much time left, yet singing with the same strength and charisma as always. And imagine being his bandmates, finishing the track after his passing and putting together a touching music video to celebrate his life and legacy. The song has this air of triumphant resignation, celebrating his success in life, lamenting the illness that has cut it short, and finally accepting that this is it, nothing lies beyond: "Qu'elle soit extra ou ordinaire/Chaque vie finit d'la même manière/C'est c'qui arrive à la fin du show".

I saw Les Cowboys live as a birthday gift on Jan 6 2023, and on Jan 4 2025 we got to see the musical. It was an amazing experience, with an excellent selection of the band's best songs performed by great actors, adapted to tell a story that was equal parts fun and depressing, which is just what I love about Les Cowboys's music. La fin du show was the climax of the spectacle and they did a great job: as the curtains came down behind the actor at the end of the song as he walked off the stage, it was like saying goodbye to Karl himself.

When I sold my soul to Rammstein in 2012, I was met with a fairly static discography: their latest studio album had come out 3 years before and few new songs were released since then. They continued touring the world, dropping the occasional compilation or concert movie, but the idea of a new Rammstein album was a distant dream.

So when they announced in 2019 their newest album after a whole decade, it was a bit like the Second Coming. It wouldn't have been a proper Rammstein release without some controversy though: the music video for Deutschland, the opening track and first to be revealed, was an epic 9-minute short film depicting different eras of German history, with all the shocking imagery that entails (which invited many people to completely miss the point of the video and the song). It is an incredible clip that deserves a careful watch to take in all the little details in narrative, cinematography, costuming and special effects.

Deutschland is, to me, a quintessential Rammstein song and one of their greatest works, exploring the band's feelings towards their country's legacy while also referencing their own history as a group. The production is absolutely stellar, with the highlight being the guitar and synth riff that permeates the entire song, which is in my opinion their single best melody. I admit I am not as familiar with the latest two albums by Rammstein than I am with their first six, but I know this song will be a forever classic, a perfect distillation of their essence.

During a time when I was most interested in the Latvian language, close to ten years ago, I somehow came across this song, whose title means "night king", which has stuck with me since then.

As I've made clear in previous features, I'm always fond of basslines that carry a song regardless of their complexity, and this one is no exception; the bass is the first thing you hear, and it never stops laying the foundation for the vocals and guitars to shine in their own ways. For the first half, the bass sets an uneasy feeling with a repetitive groove, staccato notes accompanying the drumbeat with precision; but after the halfway mark, it shifts into a continuous pattern propelling the ensemble forward, sending it hurtling into the starkly punctuated and abrupt ending.

I've always enjoyed the song's dark tone and what little I could understand of the lyrics through machine translation. Right now it's impossible to find the text, but I remember tweeting a line that I particularly liked, "Par savas karaļvalsts Karali mani sauc", and some time later getting a reply from one of the band members offering his best translation! The reply no longer exists, but I think it was something like "call me the king of my kingdom", and in the song's context, it sounds so cool.

My pet playlist has been in continuous evolution for a whole decade, with new songs being added every now and then. Most selections come from my music repertoire, but some were suggestions from my friend who understood the assignment from the beginning; this song was one of her recommendations, back in 2019.

There are two versions of it, the original being darker and this one more upbeat, but that one wasn't released officially in HQ at the time, so the version that stuck was this remix. Regardless, the lyrics made it an obligatory addition to the playlist. What's more interesting though is that the timing of discovering this song coincided with my short-term spreadsheet internship; our small team worked in the office with our own laptops and we had freedom to work however we felt was best for us. For me, I quickly found out that blasting this song on my headphones put me in an almost hypnotised state, and I got so much work done under its influence ahahaha. I truly was listening to it on loop, not just at work but also on the metro ride back home.

Both versions are now available on Spotify, but sadly this remix isn't on Apple Music for some reason. The original is very good too, with an arrangement that's even more fitting to the lyrics's obsessive, controlling themes, but the remix will always take me back to the fun times I had working my first real job.

In every Eurovision at least one artist will inevitably become the fan favourite with their song, performance, and charisma, yet have their win tragically "stolen" by a less popular entry or through unexpected voting patterns, a result that only ends up boosting the artist's appeal with the public. In 2023, Finland's contestant became this figure, placing second but undoubtedly winning in everyone's hearts.

My partner happened to be in Brazil when the Grand Final was happening, that being a year I hadn't kept up with the contest prior to the main event itself. We learned that the Final was on, so we turned on the stream, rewinded back to the beginning and watched through the whole show. At that point, I had spoiled myself a little for some of the entries, including Finland's; I was the entire time looking out for the man with the dorky haircut, neon green sleeves and Rammstein tattoo. It was such a fun performance, and the song, equal parts industrial and hyperpop, was captivating. Even my sister was listening to it on loop!

Despite not winning that year, Käärijä got a ton of new fans (I myself watched a whole livestream of a show he did shortly after the ESC, and have enjoyed his previous and subsequent releases), a boost in his career, and certainly inspired many people to become interested in Finland by bringing a fun song in his native language, which is to me the best part of Eurovision.

It's always kind of funny to stumble upon something that's apparently super popular yet never having heard of it before. Such was the case with this band, which had completely escaped my knowledge until I heard "The Summoning" on some Spotify playlist.

It was a fine song (with a genre shift at the end which I don't enjoy) but after checking out more of their music, I concluded that I simply couldn't vibe with the metalcore-R&B fusion genre the group has captured a legion of rabid fans with, especially the weirdly autotuned vocals that I guess are supposed to give a sense of "otherwordly allure"; I'm sure the band's anonymous members are great artists, but it feels like a project engineered to trick certain demographics into thinking they like metalcore by mixing in softer genres, when they're actually just listening to pop with edgy lyrics and occasional distorted guitars and some rare screams. It's a little gatekeepy from me, but I don't get the same kind of metal-brain enjoyment from this band's work that I do from "real" metalcore etc bands.

The only other song I liked from what I heard of them was this one, and it's easy to see why: the bits with fry screamed vocals and the droning bass/synth/guitars are by themselves some of my favourite music I've heard, and I really wish I could find more like it! During the rest of the song, the overproduced clean vocals don't feel as offending as in other tracks as it never strays too far from the metal baseline it's built upon. In a universe where all of this group's music was like this, maybe I'd actually like them.

For how big of a classic this song is, it's shocking how it had completely evaded me until middle of or late 2018, when I came across a very specific Final Fantasy XV fanart on twitter. It depicted a chibi Ardyn sitting on a throne, with song lyrics above and below the artwork: "Help me make the most of freedom and of pleasure / Nothing ever lasts forever" (and the song title in the caption). I spent a long time looking for it, and when I did eventually track down the original post, it was already decided that Ardyn would be my favourite character, and that this song would have a permanent spot in my library.

It's not hard to see the artist's vision in choosing this track. The lyrics, despite being set to an upbeat instrumental, are poignant, touching on themes such as nuclear war, power abuse and environmental devastation — and it's impossible not to sing and chant along.

But this song wouldn't be the same without the insane instrumentals in such a mesmerising time signature: the at first disorienting, shuffling drumbeat, the bassline that chugs along ever forward, the bright synthesised chords, and the guitar riffs and solos that give the track some extra flavour, making it unforgettable and timeless.

I've been drawn to villains for as long as I've enjoyed fiction and created my own stories. There's a special place in my heart for a character who is (willingly or not) corrupted and becomes a loyal subordinate to a bigger baddie, who will follow their every command and rejoice in the havoc they wreak; my main OC as a child had been a hero up until a moment he was tempted by the dark side.

The timeline is a bit unclear so I can't confirm whether my discovery of this song preceded my first contact with the tumblr user "thedarkdoctor" (whom I've mentioned a few times before, although not by name), but regardless if I found the song before or after meeting that person, it fit perfectly with my budding roleplaying character. My "RP-self" was little more than a self-insert who found themself in the twisted Doctor's TARDIS and became his companion, eager to prove their worth and learn his evil ways.

That is all of course buried in the past, but this song has aged super well to me, despite "dark cabaret" not being a genre I listen to. Everything about it is so compelling, starting with the violin that creates a vivid gothic atmosphere, punctuated by a steady drumbeat as proud as the narrator. The lyrics and vocals, boasting about all sorts of delightful villainy, are also incredibly memorable and evocative and such great fun to sing along with.

Chvrches entered my radar in 2015 when I heard "Recover" playing at a restaurant I used to frequent close to my high school; the song's memorable arpeggiated lead melody and crystalline vocals in an emotional crescendo that peaks in its soaring chorus intrigued me enough to seek out a few more tracks from their first album.

So in 2019 Death Stranding came out, a brilliant game I've yet to pick back up and finish. I was aware of BMTH's song that was made for the game, but I had no idea Chvrches had one too until the Game Awards in December, when they performed an orchestral arrangement of their song. It was exactly the kind of music that always gives me a good cry, the auditory equivalent of a lump in the throat. The lyrics are infused with a fierce desire to hold onto hope and human connections amidst chaos and despair, and the orchestra instrumentation along with the singer's ethereal and increasingly emotional vocals made a huge impression on me.

The studio version is amazing in its own way. Lacking the sublime sound of strings and brasses, it has a rather more melancholy vibe that nonetheless stirs indescribable emotions. Naturally it ended up being the version I'm most familiar with, and I hope I can hear it in the game some day.

I came across this Japanese group that blends J-pop, rock and classical music two separate times, through the ending themes of different animes: the first was "Magia" in Madoka Magica, and the second was "Lacrimosa" in Kuroshitsuji (neither of which series I finished watching).

While the former has a captivatingly dark sound, I picked Lacrimosa as a feature because it led me to look for more of their music, and also because it completely dominated my bassist brain for a period of time. As mentioned before, I would often bring my favourite songs to my bass lessons to dissect, and this track totally blew my teacher's mind, allowing us to spend a couple of lessons analysing it and attempting to transcribe it. It has a gorgeous bassline that carries the entire song, dynamic and colourful, like brushtrokes on a painting.

Revisiting the few songs by Kalafina I have saved, I think Magia might be my favourite to listen to after all, but I had to feature this one just for the impact it had on my bass learning career.

2011 was the year I started using tumblr and getting into fandoms, with Doctor Who (NewWho) being the most important of them. David Tennant was always extremely popular and his Doctor was my favourite, so naturally everyone including myself was fangirling over a new movie where he starred as a sexy retired vampire hunter: Fright Night.

This strange song by a group that seemingly doesn't really exist was featured in the trailer for said film, which I never saw, but the track stuck with me so much that it's held a spot in my library all these years. The first minute sets the mood with a thundercrack, arpeggios on an acoustic guitar and a harmonising, sinister-sounding vocalisation; more instruments then join the escalating storm of sonic disquiet before it all comes to halt and only the singer speaks, reciting the lyrics like an omen or a curse. With its neocore lyrics and dark sound, it's a track that has aged like wine to me, proving that bangers can come from anywhere.

I heard the movie it promoted is actually kind of good, so maybe I'll watch it at some point?

I have no memory of listening to Architects during my metalcore days in 2013, but my archives reveal not only that I did but also that I enjoyed them. Well, at that time I was listening to a lot of bands in that genre and not all of them stuck, I guess.

Then in 2019 while playing videogames I suddenly felt in the mood to listen to metalcore; it had become a sort of guilty pleasure as I'd grown out of the genre, and putting on a Spotify playlist I was indeed met not just with some nostalgic tunes but also some junk too. "Broken Cross" by Architects was one of the few good tracks that caught my attention enough to make it into my library. This exact scenario repeated in 2023, introducing me to yet another track from the same album (this one), and it hit different. While the former song was blasphemous anger incarnate, Colony Collapse is a desperate elegy to the environment and our species, explicitly written about the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster but applicable today to so many matters.

The singer's clean vocals and screams drip with sorrow and regret, while the instrumentals mixing heavy guitars with synthesised strings enhance the poignant message with moments of calm and catharsis. Maybe I should check out more of their music, they seem like a diamond in the metalcore rough.

The fact that only one other Brazilian artist made it into this section prior to now is a testament to how little I engage with my country's musical scene. However, my discovery of Fresno in 2019 shook up my conception of what Brazilian music could be in a very positive way.

Or rather rediscovery, as the band's name was always floating around during my childhood, although with them being a self-professed emo band, it wasn't always in a good light (it was just "cool" to hate on emo back then). So I went my whole life never having heard a song by this group, until one evening when I was browsing reddit and saw a Tip Of My Tongue post that I felt compelled to solve. The poster was looking for a BR album with a red cover and that search took me to Fresno's 2016 concept album. It turned out to be not the answer to the TOMT, but to my itch for new music to love!

Listening through the entire album, sober or high, was a mindblowing experience, not just for the songs themselves but also the mere idea of accidentally stumbling upon the finest Brazilian rock I'd heard. Even my music teacher at the time was pleasantly surprised by the quality of music put out by a band that most had only ever sneered at.

I first discovered FOB on tumblr in 2011 with "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs", and since then they've been another band whose presence in my library has been a constant and steadily growing with the years. With my increased interest in emo music nowadays I should definitely check out their first few albums, before they switched to a more pop rock sound with Save Rock and Roll.

Yet the bulk of my FOB library is from their latter era, and the catalyst for that was the film Big Hero 6 which featured an early version of a track that would be in their upcoming album AB/AP. I was so excited for it that I got my friend to buy it on iTunes for my birthday (along with Enter Shikari's The Mindsweep which came out at the same time). Out of all the tracks in the album this one always stuck with me the most and that's why I picked it for the feature.

From the bass-led harmony and catchy whistle tune, to the emotional vocals and bittersweet lyrics, to all the texture details like little piano notes and hand clap percussion, this song floods me with nostalgia for 2015, my last year of high school and the end of a chapter in my life.

Yet another recent addition straight from a "2000's rock" playlist that made me think "how have I never heard this banger before?!", I've been a little obsessed with it since the first hearing. The name Placebo was not unfamiliar to me, as I had a vivid memory of one of their songs being played on loop by my sister when we were younger; sadly it wasn't this one, otherwise I think it might have changed my brain chemistry.

Or maybe it's good that I only stumbled upon it now, being equipped with a more eclectic taste refined over the years. The very prominent bass absolutely carries the instrumental, setting a suffocating pace that doesn't relent until a little after the halfway point in the song. The vocals alternating going up and down from a monotone baseline on each line are addictive, high in pitch but painting a dark scene, which in my view culminates in the line "as you're walking awaaaaay reminds me that it's killing time", at which point everything stops and you finally get a chance to release the breath you didn't know you were holding. At least, until the song picks back up in the outro, with renewed vigour in the drums and vocals.

Despite it being a new addition to my library, it's become a staple of my car rides to school. It's such a fun song to sing along and bop the head to, all while trying not to get too excited and start speeding!

The last of the "Big Four" NDH bands (by my own designation) to be featured here, Eisbrecher is the one whose style I always felt the most resistance to, going so far as to claim I didn't like the group, only a handful of their songs. Founded by the original singer of Megaherz, they had a distinctly more electronic sound compared to the other bands in the pantheon.

Eisbrecher came to me in 2011 through a very special tumblr friend (who's getting a dedicated blog post at some point) with the song "Kinder der Nacht". I didn't really look for more of their music until a few months later when I came across this track, which became my new favourite out of the two that I knew. The pounding beat, punchy guitar riffs, atmospheric synths and deep vocals tapped into a music taste gene that would be fully reawakened soon after, with my rediscovery of Rammstein.

Speaking of which, I've been itching for German metal again and listening to a bit of Megaherz and Eisbrecher. I definitely think Alexx sounds much better in the latter — he'd grown a lot as a singer by the time he founded it — and more specifically in Antikörper. There's so many NDH singers that try to copy what made Rammstein's Till so iconic, but I think Alexx stands well on his own. I'm excited to revisit their music with a more open mind than I did a decade ago.

Considering my super old pet playlist that I've written about in my blog, it's surprising that I'd never known about this song until very recently. My only previous contact with this band was through their hit "The World is not Enough" (which already had a spot in my playlist), but it was only thanks to a reddit comment that I discovered this song.

The commenter in question recalled an occasion when they chose Number 1 Crush as a soundtrack for a lap dance, posting under a thread about the movie Romeo + Juliet, which apparently included this song in its OST. (Coincidentally, I just had that film featured here! I didn't know until now that this song had a relation to the film, nor did I remember the exact context of the reddit comment that led me to it.) Somehow, that comment along with others claiming it was the "sexiest song ever" made me curious enough to check it out, and they were definitely right: the lyrics, dripping with violent obsession and corruption, are incredibly neocore and fit so perfectly in my playlist that I couldn't believe I'd never heard the track before.

The provocative lyrics are at first carried by a mesmerising bassline and a very trip-hop sounding drum loop, with the big highlight, the famous "gated reverb snare" (a term I learned thanks to comments about this song), kicking in at about 1:25. But I find the next verse after the chorus, with an even more aggressive percussion and rapidly escalating lyrics, the most addictive part of the song, which I can't help but play on loop every time.

I don't know why it has taken me this long to put this song in my little music corner, cuz even though it was a recent addition to my library it instantly became one of my most played tracks at the time of discovery.

In August of 2022, on the occasion of my first trip to Québec, we were having a family supper one day when my partner's father started chatting with me about music and asked me to put on some Brazilian music I enjoyed. He, being more than a little tipsy, thought that one artist I played sounded like a Canadian group he liked, and thus I was introduced to this song. (I could kind of see where he was coming from, but I think his rec was much better than mine.) After supper I looked up the song he showed me, and it became the soundtrack for the rest of my trip, including my emotionally overwhelming departure at the airport.

Starting with a soft acoustic guitar-led intro and single bass notes, the energy picks up with the addition of drums and a simple but impactful bassline, as well as increasingly assertive vocals. There's something so haunting and bittersweet about the lyrics, in a way I can feel more than I can explain, especially my favourite line: "The rat in your brain rules the world...".

Like many other tracks previously featured on my website, this song has accompanied me ever since my childhood. While researching to write this blurb, I found out the likely reason it became popular here was that it was featured in a telenovela, which would line up with the timeline.

And out of all songs I've already put in here, this might be the most generic folkish pop track, but it's still very dear to me. I don't really like the artist's other popular songs, but in this one I think his voice definitely fits the mellow atmosphere created by the lone acoustic guitar at the start, which is then joined by the piano, some electric guitar licks, and finally drums and bass. While the instrumentals have a rather cozy sound, the lyrics filled with melancholy, self-loathing and grief elevate the track to a timeless classic, in my opinion.

The lyrics are, in fact, a highlight of the song for me. Especially in the outro when all instruments come together and the singer goes "Look at the stars fall down and wonder where did I go wrong?"; having lived with many regrets now, this always makes my chest hurt.

Slipknot are a band I feel reluctant to support, considering how several members were fired or let go or screwed over. I have known them since before my conversion into a metalhead, though their music and stage personas intimidated/scared me. Once I became primed to enjoy metal music, the band was one of the obvious options on the menu, and thus I've followed them on and off for more than a decade.

Their first album since Gray's death, released in 2014, was my very first iTunes purchase, and I must have been fully hyped to have wanted to hear it ASAP. Now, I wasn't even that big into them anymore by the time they released their 2019 album, so I don't know what led me to also buy it on iTunes, but I guess I did. And I thought it was a fine release, although none of their albums have ever universally appealed to me.

This song was the standout for me and quickly became my favourite Slipknot track. It has a tasteful balance of softness and harshness, going from verses that evoke feelings of haziness and lightheadedness, to a captivatingly explosive chorus accompanied by the instruments in full force, then to a bridge marked by a barrage of aggressiveness, and then to my favourite bit: "The greatest conclusion that I ever had...", that always makes me rewind over and over and sing along. Regardless of how I feel about the band as an entity, this song earned a spot among some of my favourite tracks ever.

Me and my sister don't have much in common in music tastes, but there are a few songs I discovered through her that lodged themselves in my brain and never left. I believe this song was featured in a show she used to be obsessed with, and that is how she found it and by extension how I came to know it.

In my current emo appreciation era, I can see why it has continuously appealed to me so much. It has that highly nostalgic 2000's sound that I've already pointed out in previous song features, it's in 6/8 time which automatically qualifies it to be neocore, and the vocal line in the chorus always makes me sing along (especially the high B note in "I'll hold ON to this MOment"). Everything about this song just takes me back, and it has remained relevant in my library for many years.

A few years ago, an ex-friend and I picked it as a song for our OCship. That relationship ended and the ship fizzled out of existence, but my love for this song by itself is so strong that it carries no negative connotations for me. I win!

I got into Devil May Cry in 2021, but my contact with the franchise actually dates back to late 2013, through a gameplay video from a channel I used to follow, of the much beloathed "DmC" reboot. They showcased just the intro, but it was enough to make me interested in the soundtrack featuring Combichrist.

I had heard of this group before due to their being sort of adjacent to Rammstein in the industrial metal genre. I checked out some of their tracks featured in the game, especially the licensed tracks in disc 2 of the OST, and I enjoyed quite a few of them. However, it was only this song that stood the test of time, always having a spot in my music library.

And it's for good reason: it has an insanely catchy chorus, really groovy and punchy instrumentals, and lyrics that relate to many of my favourite characters. I never got to fulfil my younger self's dream of playing the bad DmC game, but it left me a great musical legacy.

While I'm not entirely sure how I came about this song in early 2015, I can say for certain this Northern Irish band soon became one of the key artists of my growing "indie rock/pop" taste. I quite enjoyed more than a few tracks from both their released albums at that time, but this one is extra special because it played an important role in my amateur musician career!

As mentioned in previous entries, I started going to a music school in 2015 to learn the bass. After a few months of studying under the owner of the school who was a rather traditional instructor, another teacher took over my lessons, and this one was a much cooler guy. He would always encourage me to bring my own favourite songs for us to use as a basis for our lessons, and he eventually asked if I wanted to join a band with other students from the school. Our repertoire consisted of a few medleys of Brazilian and English-language songs, a French jazz-y song, and What You Know, which was my suggestion!

It fit really well with the rest of their existing setlist and it had a pretty fun bassline, like a lot of TDCC's songs. We did 3 live performances as a group and this one was always my favourite to play, though I was a little biased, haha.

I was introduced to MCR via tumblr, but I never really considered myself a fan. I knew a handful of tracks from The Black Parade and the first one out of their last album, but this sample size didn't appeal to me enough to make me look for more.

Fast forward until the middle of the pandemic, when I discovered this song and the big hit off "Three Cheers", Helena. At a time in my life when I began to accept my past and present edginess and emoness in the same manner a Persona character accepts their Shadow self, those two songs really resonated with me in a way their subsequent releases did not. This track especially was on repeat for several days; while Helena already starts high-energy with a barrage of drumbeats and anthemic lyrics, The Ghost of You has a mellow verse supported by the bass and a soft guitar, that suddenly explodes into a heartwrenching chorus — I especially love Gerard's vocals in "At the end of the world or the last thing I see...".

I did check out the rest of this album hoping that it would outdo The Black Parade in number of saved songs in my library, but unfortunately it didn't, despite the fact that I definitely vibe with its sound more. Maybe if I give it another listen through?

As mentioned before, Lollapalooza in 2015 was my first festival and I'd only gone to see Bastille with friends. I enjoyed the experience, but didn't really come out of there with any new favourite artists; except one: alt-J (or Δ, as I would insist). We didn't go to their stage directly, but rather saw it from afar for a little while. It was likely that moment that put their name in the back of my mind for me to check out later.

With their artsy lyrics (a bit like Bastille at that time) and instrumentals, and dreamy vocals with some French sprinkled in, the group rapidly joined my faves. Breezeblocks was among the first songs I tried to learn on the bass and I spent a long time manually writing down the layered lyrics during the outro; Matilda was one of the first songs of theirs I heard and I couldn't help remembering it when I watched Léon recently; the Intros to albums 1 and 2 are both incredily hypnotising and stand as great songs by themselves.

I picked Nara because it has only grown on me over time; it not only has beautiful lyrics but also a breathtaking instrumental arrangement, especially in the last section. So many different sounds and textures come together to create a stunning, ethereal mix that always makes me feel like I'm floating out of this world into the heavens.

It was at some point between 2010 and 2011 that Disney was running ads on TV for the documentary "Earth" featuring Hoppípolla by Sigur Rós. I've always been soft for uplifting, inspirational tunes, and that one in particular moved me so much I never forgot it. I remember one day listening to it so much on loop, losing track of time, that I missed my English class.

In 2015 the group re-entered my radar, probably because I had recently started learning the bass, and somehow learned about artists that play electric guitar with a violin/cello bow (like Jónsi) to get special sounds (I bought one myself to try it out). What got me into them was their then-most recent album Kveikur, which has a kind of heavy, industrial sound; compared to my preexisting knowledge of their music, it was mindblowing.

I listened to a lot of their live performances and checked out some of their other albums, and I quickly became addicted to their music. During my flight to London in late July I almost exclusively had Sigur Rós on repeat, and once I was in the city I was able to visit a HMV and buy CD's of some of my favourite bands, including Kveikur.