THROWS – THROWS

Reykjavík-based duo Mike Lindsay and Sam Genders, aka THROWS, arrive with warm-hearted Icelandic indie rock designed to thaw your cold, cold heart. The former Tunng associates take a genre-spanning approach, inspired by their studio's view onto the city's industrial harbour. Songs of self-improvement, silence and changing sheets are illustrated by frosty natural imagery, choral vocals, strummed ballads and some serious, ambitious theatrics.

The melodrama barometer spikes high on mid-record break-up track Sun Gun, and High Pressure Front steadily becomes increasingly, impressively glam as their vocals pitch high; 'No-one told me this would be so hard.'

Bask takes an unexpectedly thumping, industrial turn and there are moments of proper brilliance in the sparse dramatics of Knife and Learn Something. The spoken-word closer Under the Ice – an eerie tale of wintery metamorphosis, albatrosses and nudity – is a step dangerously close to the edge, but the orchestral backing is cinematic enough to round out this record of overblown emotion and chilling natural phenomena.