If you thought Finland and surf rock is an odd pairing, how about reggae and Iceland? It turns out that the country that inspired Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song is home to one of the best modern reggae bands around, Hjálmar.
Iceland has the highest literacy rate in the world (and more than that, these people really read) and it seems like every third person is in a band of some sort. For a country of only a 300,000+ there are a ton of bands, and an awful lot of really good ones. I've always been surprised that ska never seemed to take off in Iceland, considering how many countries around the globe have at least one recorded ska band, but Iceland more than makes up for that with Hjálmar's excellent reggae. They put out a pure reggae that is not junked up with vocoder or treated vocals or rap breaks or other distractions. What we enjoy here is a distillation of the best reggae of the 1970s, with a little dub carefully thrown in for good measure. Think of this as Cool Runnings reversed.
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