Best of Budapest & Hungary

The Icelandic indie-folk band is coming to Budapest with their new album, All Is Love and Pain in the Mouse Parade. Of Monsters and Men - who broke through with Little Talks - will bring smiles to our faces with their songs on June 22 at Budapest Park.

    Of Monsters and Men formed in 2010, and their career took off with the release of My Head Is an Animal. Their breakthrough came with Little Talks, the hit song featured on that album. Their newly released fourth full-length record arrives six years after Fever Dream. It may sound strange, but the title All Is Love and Pain in the Mouse Parade, along with its beating heart, is closer to us than one might think at first. This album is a tapestry of stories, moments, and conversations, exploring how love and pain intertwine. These emotions may seem contradictory, yet they coexist and need each other.

    The album includes both smaller and larger stories — from the loneliness and longing one feels while living in an apartment building full of strangers, to a missed connection in a grocery store, to the winter life and losses of a mouse community living in an empty house.
The two vocalist-songwriters, Nanna Hilmarsdóttir and Ragnar Þórhallsson, often tell these stories from two different perspectives. “The album is about duality — where there is love, there will inevitably be pain. One cannot exist without the other,” Nanna explains. “We drew inspiration from our lives, our families, our communities, and the generations before us. Our lives together form the Mouse Parade.”
“In a sense, it’s an album about growing up; in another sense, it’s about coming home — about making peace with the past,” Ragnar adds.

    In the six years since their previous album Fever Dream, the members of the Icelandic indie sensation finally found time to process everything that had happened. They toured until the pandemic brought everything to a halt, released an EP and a documentary, then started individual projects — while several of them also started families. This break was essential for escaping the hamster wheel they had been in since 2011, when their hit Little Talks exploded.

    “After ten years of constant writing and touring, it was time for reevaluation,” Nanna admits. “We needed a moment to step back and realize: ‘Oh, we’re adults now.’ We began settling into a life that wasn’t only about the band. It was time to rethink things.”

    Iceland is famously small and close-knit, so good friends were never far away. When they started working on the album, they decided they needed a change of scenery to rediscover the connection they had felt in the beginning. In the sound and energy of the album, they aimed to capture that core feeling they experienced while writing. On their upcoming The Mouse Parade tour next year, they hope to ensure that people feel good at their concerts — listening to their heartwarming, sometimes melancholic, sometimes energetic songs. The Budapest date of the parade will be June 22, at Budapest Park.

Registered Live Nation members can purchase tickets first on December 10 at 10 a.m., while general ticket sales begin on December 12 at 10 a.m. on the Live Nation and Funcode websites.