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Dýrðin, Dýrðin

by Meghan Jones
09/01/2006

So I popped in my cherry-covered copy of the Dýrðin album one afternoon with the intention of giving it my first listen while I did some homework in my room. I literally knew nothing about them, but as soon as the music started, I was tapping my toes. By song two, there was head bobbing and involuntary clapping; before I knew it, I had abandoned my Rousseau and was dancing around my tiny, tiny bedroom. Needless to say, this made my homework a great deal more bearable.

The next time I listened to Dýrðin was early (too early for my tastes, anyway) one morning in the shower. Anyone who knows me knows I am pretty awful at waking up, and yet I had choreographed quite the dance routine before I even had time to lather, rinse and repeat. What I'm getting at is that listening to the group's irrefutably-the-happiest-thing-I've-ever-heard tunes makes ordinarily un-fun things as enjoyable as eating the delicious looking cake that adorns the album's cover.

And I thought all of this before I even knew I had been taken on a cosmic journey through outer space, fairy tales of old and the set of Star Trek. Let me explain. Dýrðin, Icelandic for "The Glory" (and pronounced something like "deerthin"), have only two songs in English on their eleven song album, so the American listener will understand virtually none of the lyrics. This is pretty much a non-issue, though, since soon enough you're used to (and liking, for that matter) the peppy and quirky aspect the language lends to the keyboard and drum-heavy but poppy-as-anything music.

When I finally did notice that the inside back cover of the album was chock full of tiny words IN ENGLISH, I realized that what I had on my hands was a bit of a far-fetched concept album. And it is darn cute. For the most part, the listener follows a heartbroken girl on her adventures to find love. This takes her through an affair with a slimy, smelly green alien, and then out to the swamps to smooch a frog in false hope that he will turn into her prince. She then falls tragically in love with Mr. Spock, but somehow ends up trapped in a cellophane bubble, still single. In the last song, she is alone, sad, and 25 years older, but her crazy adventure was fun for everyone.

When not accompanying the Icelandic lass on her search for undying affection, the listener is transported to other magical places, such as lands where grandpas can orbit into outer space after jumping on a trampoline, and a cold, cold winter far, far away as two snowpeople fall in love and melt together with the rising of the sun on Christmas night (because sometimes the sun rises at nighttime in Iceland, remember?).

If that doesn't make you want to put aside your lack of knowledge of Icelandic and jump around in your living room for awhile, I'm just not sure what will.

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