Fever Dream

Background

Lead singer Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir said that while writing the album she had grown "really tired" of writing songs on an acoustic guitar as it "brought out things in [me] that were predictable", so she began working on a laptop at home, "figuring out all these new sounds and being curious about them". Nanna said lead single "Alligator", called "driving and percussion-heavy" by Billboard, began like a "dance song", but that it is not entirely representative of the album's sound. She described the album as "more poppy and brighter" than the band's previous album, 2015's Beneath the Skin.

Reception

Critical reception

Fever Dream received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 70, based on 12 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".

Commercial performance

Fever Dream debuted at number nine on the US Billboard 200 with 34,000 album-equivalent units, of which 30,000 were pure album sales. It is Of Monsters and Men's third US top 10 album.

Personnel

Of Monsters and Men

Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir – vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards, percussion

Ragnar Þórhallsson – vocals, guitar, piano, synthesizer, keyboards

Brynjar Leifsson – guitar, synthesizer

Kristján Páll Kristjánsson – bass, synthesizer

Arnar Rósenkranz Hilmarsson – drums, percussion, programming, synthesizer, piano

Additional musicians

Steingrimur Karl Teague – piano (tracks 2, 4, 5, 6, 9)

Viktor Orri Árnason – strings (tracks 4, 10)

Technical

Of Monsters and Men – producer

Rich Costey – producer, mixing, programming

Joe LaPorta – mastering

Martin Cooke – engineering, programming

KT Pipal – mixing assistance

Artwork and design

Davíð Arnar Baldursson – design, layout

Ragnar Þórhallsson – design, layout

Jón Sæmundur – paintings