It's cold outside. Like, really cold.
We've officially made it through 'Christmas music season,' but it just doesn't feel right to listen to just anything. Cold weather, warm coats, and frost all call for special music, music that reflects the way this time of year feels.
The perfect band for that? Of Monsters and Men.
Maybe it's because they're Icelandic, or the nature imagery that's sprinkled throughout their lyrics, but something about their music feels perfect for this time of year.
Here are fifteen songs that seem to be written just for this time of year:
1. “Winter Sound”
Wintery atmosphere: the lyrics, “You and I will not be shaken/By the winter sound/But my voice is suffocating/In the winter sound”
Best lyrics: “Stop, I will take control/Bend the metal into shapes that I know, ooh-ooh/And I run, I run, I run, further than before/I shake away the skin to saturate my soul”
2. “King and Lionheart”
Wintery atmosphere: the lyrics, “And in the winter night sky ships are sailing/Looking down on these bright blue city lights”
Best lyrics: “Howling ghosts they reappear/In mountains that are stacked with fear/But you're a king and I'm a lionheart”
3. “Sloom”
Wintery atmosphere: the overall feel of the song is like that one super soft sweater you can’t wait to pull out every winter.
Best lyrics: “The carpet on my cheek feels like a forest/And I run through the tall trees with your hands chasing me/The books that I keep by my bags are full of your stories/That I drew up from a little dream of mine, a little nightmare of yours”
4. “Crystals”
Wintery atmosphere: The lyrics, “raw and charcoal coloured thighs/Feel so cold and my skin feels so paper-thin”
Best lyrics: “But I'm okay in see-through skin/I forgive what is within/'Cause I'm in this house/I'm in this home/All my time”
5. “We Sink”
Wintery atmosphere: This song kind of feels like the emotional version of wrapping yourself in a cold blanket and feeling it slowly warm up the longer you stay wrapped up in it (but in a good way, I swear!).
Best lyrics: “It's warm, the skin I'm living in/It creates and shapes what is within/So please look away, don't look at me/As we sink into the open sea”
6. “Organs”
WIntery atmosphere: the lyrics, “My blood runs red but my body feels so cold”
Best lyrics: “So I take off my face/'Cause it reminds me how it all went wrong/And I pull out my tongue/'Cause it reminds me how it all went wrong/And I cough up my lungs/'Cause they remind me how it all went wrong/But I leave in my heart'Cause I don't want to stay in the dark”
7. “Yellow Light”
Wintery atmosphere: Maybe it’s just because of the title, but this song always makes me want to curl up in front of a fire with a good book.
Best lyrics: “I dare you to close your eyes/And see all the colors in disguise.”
8. “Wolves Without Teeth”
Wintery atmosphere: Without ever specifically mentioning it, this song evokes imagery of running through a snow-covered forest.
Best lyrics: “I can see through you/We are the same/It's perfectly strange/You run in my veins”
9. “Dirty Paws”
Wintery atmosphere: “The birds, they got help from below/From dirty paws and the creatures of snow/So for a while things were cold/They were scared down in their holes”
Best lyrics: “The forest of talking trees/They used to sing about the birds and the bees/The bees had declared a war/The sky wasn't big enough for them all/The birds, they got help from below/From dirty paws and the creatures of snow”
10. “Silhouettes”
Wintery atmosphere: the drums in this song always make me think of cold weather, especially combined with the voice of Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir.
Best lyrics: “A thousand silhouettes dancing on my chest,/No matter where I sleep, you are haunting me”
11. “Slow and Steady”
Wintery atmosphere: the lyrics, “All the trees outside are buried in the snow”
Best lyrics: “I spend my night dancing with my own shadow/And it holds me and it never lets me go”
12. “Thousand Eyes”
Wintery atmosphere: There’s just something about this song. I can’t quite figure out what it is, but something about it just SCREAMS “Winter.”
Best lyrics: “I am the storm/So wait”
13. “Backyard”
Wintery atmosphere: the lyrics, “Under a starlit night/I wrap myself in thin sheet of ice”
Best lyrics: “See how my mountains turn/From blue to black/From white to gray/I'm a bird and a broken one/The drops illuminate and evaporate into a neon lake/I'm a beast and the vicious one”
14. “Slow Life”
Wintery atmosphere: Much like “Thousand Eyes,” I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is about this song, there’s just SOMETHING that makes me think of cold weather.
Best lyrics: “But I’m a mountain/I am a killer/You’ll get lost and buried deep/If you swim with me”
15. “I of the Storm”
Wintery atmosphere: the lyrics, “But I feel it burning/Like when the winter wind/Stops my breathing”
Best lyrics: “I am a stranger/I am an alien inside a structure/Are you really gonna love me when I'm gone?/With all my thoughts/And all my faults”
