Of Monsters and Men – Phantom
2021 · Directed by WeWereMonkeys
46K Likes
Best comments
1.“My dog's name is Phantom. We played this for him on his birthday yesterday. He likes it.”
More comments
- 2.“This is one of their old unreleased songs – so glad they're getting back to the old Icelandic folk vibe.”
- 3.“No matter how fearsome their creature designs look, the music makes them all seem impossibly gentle.”
The story
Phantom is the song that started it all for Of Monsters and Men, and it sat in a drawer for more than a decade. The Icelandic band played it in 2010 at Músíktilraunir, the Icelandic music competition whose win got their career rolling. They wrote it during the sessions for their debut, My Head Is an Animal, then left it off the record.
For the album's 10th anniversary edition in October 2021 they finally recorded it, credited to Nanna and Ragnar, and gave it a video. They called back WeWereMonkeys, the production crew behind their Little Talks video (the one with the sky-sailors, the two-headed bird and the sea monster) and King and Lionheart. Ten years on: same band, same directors, and the same song they played back when nobody knew their name.
It's a gentle one, soft guitar and hushed vocals, about watching someone you love stay stuck and unhappy. My Head Is an Animal debuted at number six in the US back in 2012, the best showing ever by an Icelandic act at the time, beating Björk. Phantom got there late. It still got there.
