So we start with a week with a lovely album for us all to get immersed into, and it's a release from none other than 'Between Mountains', whom we first featured way back in 2017, shortly after they won the prestigious 'Músíktilraunir' - Iceland's Battle of the Bands Competition. At the time the duo from the Westfjords (Katla and Ásrós) were both under 16 years old, and it's still pretty extraordinary that they've managed to get an album fully written and recorded when they're still so young. The release of their self titled album, however, also sees the end of the 'Between Mountains' journey for Ásrós, who is moving on from the project, but Katla will still carry on writing and performing under the name.
So back in 2017 we wrote about the track 'Little Summer Flower' and they went on to release the pretty significant hit 'Into the Dark' last year, and the album has 10 songs which includes that latter track. It's a well written album which is 'bigger' instrumentally than I expected for some reason (probably because I remember footage from their early live performances), and highlights definitely include the gorgeous opening song 'Open Grounds', with lovely vocals and harmonies, and a shimmering tune. But we're actually focussing on the 2nd track on the album, 'Little Lies', which also has a pretty sizable indie guitar sound to it, and as we've heard before, there's a bright melody in verse and chorus, and strong vocals with ever present harmonies. Whilst it can'tbe described as 'hard hitting', it blends indie guitar, pop and folk sounds really nicely, and there's a natural maturity to the songwriting,
Anyway we recommend the album, from the soft strains of 'Bound' to the quirky 'Don't Want To Be In Love' and the previously released 'Into the Dark', and even though we haven't had chance yet to really get to know the whole album as well as we would like, it's definitely going to be a real favourite over the next few months.
This is 'Little Lies':
So 'Between Mountains' was released just last Friday, and you can find them on Facebook.