Of Monsters and Men’s latest LP is a special one, to say the least. On the latest episode of American Songwriter’s Off the Record podcast, Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir and Ragnar “Raggi” Þórhallsson discussed their new album, All Is Love and Pain in the Mouse Parade.
Released in October, All Is Love and Pain in the Mouse Parade, which the musicians made with bandmates Brynjar Leifsson, Arnar Rósenkranz Hilmarsson, and Kristján Páll Kristjánsson, explores topics including love and pain.
Those feelings are especially clear on “The Block” and “Mouse Parade,” two tracks that bleed into each other, with the former about people living in a high rise building, and the latter about the community of mice dwelling under the floorboards.
“I think it just kind of summed up the experience of making this album, and I think our lives for the past few years,” Hilmarsdóttir said of the LP’s title. “… It’s like these two opposites… and we’re very attracted to opposites and to these two worlds that are connected.”
Of Monsters and Men Discuss All Is Love and Pain in the Mouse Parade Stand Outs
The 13-track album also includes “The Actor.” The song nearly made it onto Hilmarsdóttir’s 2023 solo release, How to Start a Garden.
“At that point I was feeling a little bit fed up,” she said. “I think I was putting out my album, and it was feeling a bit stressful. The whole process was feeling daunting.”
“I had come from writing, where it’s so pure and you’re not thinking about the outside world at all. You’re not thinking about anything. It’s just you making this thing,” Hilmarsdóttir continued. “Then you go into this next chapter, which is releasing, and there are so many things that come with it. I think I was just feeling a little bit lost in it, and that’s where the song comes from.”
Þórhallsson got to explore his own complicated emotions on “Tuna in a Can,” a song that came about when he was “feeling like a little tuna in a can.”
“[It’s about when you feel] kind of trapped, when you’re kind of sheltering yourself from life a bit, and you feel kind of like all mushy and weird,” he explained. “So that was like that original feeling of the song. [I was] kind of writing almost to a person that’s kind of shying away from life… wanting to just be in his can, stuck there, safe.”
Then there’s “Styrofoam Cathedral,” which Þórhallsson counts as his favorite to play because “It just gives me such energy. I get to scream, and I like screaming.”
Overall, the LP is one that Þórhallsson believes stands out from their previous releases.
“I think there are elements in this album that you can find on other albums, kind of. But I think there’s, to me, a certain calmness, a certain ease,” he said. “I think this one has a quiet energy and some space that I enjoy, which I think is as important as the noise.”
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