Kaelan Mikla should perhaps be referred to as Kælan Mikla with the a and the e jammed together as that is how all of their press materials portray them. For that matter, perhaps I should think of myself as Tom Jæschke instead of Tom Jaeschke or would that be Tom Jäschke with an umlaut over the a maybe? I dunno. The æ character named æsc or ash tends not to be... Oh, enough! I should probably talk about their music, huh? They were basically good. This is saying a great deal in coming from me in considering that I don't see a great many examples of girl acts which are good at punk and yes this was punk music... to some extent. Laufey Soffía (left) who is lead vocals kind of screamsings. Does that work at length? Can you get away with screaming when you are always screaming? Well, it is hit and miss. There were some songs where she killed it and you cannot imagine her swapped out with someone else. This is a trio of three women and the other two girls sing backup somewhat and less distinctly. I learned about this encountering an advertisement on Facebook and it turned out to be all of ten dollars to go so why wouldn't I go? It was worth ten dollars for sure. The initial intrigue came in having it suggested (in that ad) that this band was both punk and a Depeche Mode style synth band with the synthesizer going and all that. The bassist, Margrét Rósa Dóru-Harrýsdóttir (right), introduced the second song from the set as seen below with "How about a little more bass and a little more computer?" and we got just that! I liked this better than the opening in which Laufey burned some incense and danced in a trance during a slow warm up as if to say: hey, we're are a bunch of witches... things are spooky, or something. The band is from Iceland and all of the lyrics were in Icelandic and the three seemed more than happy to play up an outsider-looking-in stereotype about Iceland. That's what not Iceland wants from Iceland. I can't help but wonder if fans chat them up about Iceland all the time while they are really sick of it and happy to escape their podunk birthplace. Sticking with ambience and kitsch, the visuals projected on the back screen showed cold countryside, etc. The film footage was consistently in black and white because brrr we are freezing or something. Ha! Sometimes just the top half of the face of Sólveig Matthildur Kristjánsdóttir (center) across the eyes was lit up by the projection in a band of bright white light. This wasn't accidental. I found this trick the best of the visuals and it helped Sólveig stand out while in the back a bit. Sólveig at the synthesizer was the real talent amongst the three. The synth outweighed the punk. It is synth with some screaming. The synth half is where the sophistication lies. Observe:
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