Inspired by Prince of Persia commercial, Sigur Ros and other obscure Icelandic musicians create video game

December 31, 2008 by kt

By KT:

If you haven’t noticed lately, video game commercials are getting pretty emo. With the use of DeVotchKa’s “How It Ends” in Gears of War 2 and then Sigur Ros’s Untitled song from their Untitled album (not pretentious) in Prince of Persia, gaming and indie music are now teaming up for the ultimate indie nerdcore fest ever. With the two worlds of gaming and music proverbially mingling at the company’s holiday mixer (you know, the one where you got “sooo wasted!” at off the un-spiked egg nog), Sigur Ros and other music artists native to the country of Iceland have decided to cross brand themselves to become more widely known and accepted. Thusly, they are currently creating and featuring in their own video game.

To sum up the general theme of the game, the members of Sigur Ros are essentially a Icelandic “band of brothers” who by using their musical “talents” ward off evil that takes on the form of a random group of mystic forest goblins who are attempting to destroy and take over Iceland, so they can finally turn it back into Greenland like it was supposed to be in the first place. Keeping within the theme and tradition of their homeland, Sigur Ros have collectively come up with the idea to be represented as Nordic warrior characters, wielding musical instruments as their weapons.

Sigur Ros’ leading man Jónsi Birgisson has been quoted saying something in his language of Icelandic, which roughly translated in English is “Yeah. It’s cool. I beat goblin like things to their deaths with my microphone. I am wearing armor. When are you taking me to McDonald’s?”

Other powers that the characters are capable of are: killing off forest goblin villages by the continuous serenading of incoherent singing in Icelandic, the band playing their entire Untitled album (approximately 5 hours long give or take), and getting drunk off vodka and crying tears of sadness and death onto the evil goblins who dissolve upon contact.

Bjork will also be featured as herself in the game, in which her powers in fending off evil include singing her oddly American big band sounding single “It’s Oh So Quiet” while swathed in that swan dress thing she wore to the Oscars that for whatever reason, really pissed everyone off.

The release date of the game is still undetermined as it is not in fact finished, due to the disappearance of one of the band members. The last he was seen was when the band was taking promotional photos in their costumes for the game, and he decided to chase after a rabbit into the forest. Stay on the beat for more details of this and more news on the game as they become available.

Permalink