Reykjavík Grapevine - 17.10.2008, Side 16

With ten acts scheduled for the day, Kaffi Hljoma-
lind was one of the most active off-venues on Fri-
day. All the bands played in the community space
in the back of the coffee house. First on was the
electronic artist Casette. While his atmospheric
songs where beautiful, his appearance was just un-
spectacular. A motionless guy sitting in front of his
computer: I have seen more excitement at a bank
counter. The subsequent band Sudden Weather
Change was totally different in this regard. They
presented a show of powerful post-punk. On the
one hand intentionally off-key and rough, on the
other hand melodic, they presented themselves
as a professional live band. They were followed
by Miri, who tried to combine dodgy guitar parts
with atmospheric songwriting. Another electronic
artist hit the stage after them. Eukidu turned out
to be a quite good songwriter, but destroyed this
basis by hectically switching between instruments
and his computer. This destroyed the quiet note of
his music, because his musical performance got
quite sloppy. The sound in Hljómalind changed
from electro to americana-country, when Artery
Bros. started to play. The band played this style
in a simple way, which did not make very fancy
impression. The poor vocals made it even worse.
With black humour and an exceptional approach
to songwriting, Me The Slumbering Napoleon
went on stage. They undermined the concept of
‘songs’ by sudden breaks and strange beats. How-
ever, by not taking themselves too serious, they
made this an entertaining appearance for every-
one. The Mae Shi, who did their second Airwaves
performance, turned Kaffi Hljomalind into a big
playground by rollicking in the café, spreading a
huge cloth over the audience and demanding their
own encore. People had great fun and joined in
their call for more electro-punkrock-noise. The
Neighbours, which were up next, shared The
Mae Shi’s love for fast punk beats, but did not
come up with anything special in this style. They
were followed by Fru Grimheidur, a local classic
rock outfit. The last band was Vera, which played
quite dark new-metalon a very high technical level.
Unfortunately their performance suffered of very
bad sound settings during the first songs, which
turned the vocals into a giant eardrum-piercing
feedback. Florian ZüHlKe
Hljómalind:
Off Venue
FRi
DAY
Leó