I have no idea if Hjaltalin felt any pressure for the only London show of their pretty big European tour last night. They could have done, my Icelandic-music-detector hasn't needed to work too hard to see an impressive amount of mentions in the nationwide and London press in the last week. A very nice album review last Sunday in The Observer (or was it The Sunday Times?) followed by another in Metro (London free paper) on Monday and then a gig preview in one of the evening papers along the lines of, "forget Sigur Ros, this is the Icelandic band you should see…"

To be better than the supporting three bands was never going to be too much trouble, but to live up to the press would be difficult. Hjaltalin arrived on stage shortly after 10:30 and silenced the (pretty large, but previously very chatty and distracted) Luminaire crowd with a super-sweet start of just voice and acoustic guitar. The set grew pace quickly from there, the second (Traffic Music) and third (Goodbye July, a highlight) tracks kept the attention of the audience but it drifted again with a whole load of chatting coming from around the edges of The Luminaire, which was a shame.

The highlight of the set was the penultimate song, the Icelandic language "Thu Komst Vid Hjartad I Mer". Beforehand, they explained the chorus lyric in English and assured everyone that it wasn't quite so gooey and cliche ridden in Icelandic – it's something like 'you came into my life and changed it forever..'. Anyhow, suddenly I realised that the venue was half full of Icelanders, they came from all corners to get as near to the stage as possible for this song, which made for a fun and triumphant end to the show. Where do they all come from? (Iceland, yes I know). I'm sure there are a few faces that I see over and over again at Icelandic bands' London shows, in addition to the people I do actually know who are always there.

I hadn't seen a full Hjaltalin show before, just a few bars here and there at erm, a few bars, in Reykjavik during Airwaves. I thought they were excellent, the songs from debut album 'The Sleepdrunk Sessions' improve when heard live, there's a good presence and energy to complement what is a fantastic set of dreamy, crafted and melodic pop songs. And you can't beat the sight of a girl grappling with a bassoon which is taller than she is. A good night.

It's such a pleasure when one of the excellent Icelandic scene comes to London to play, bring on the next one… which could be My Summer As A Salvation Soldier. Watch this space. Or alternatively, and more reliably, his myspace!

The photo up there is not from last night, I just nicked it from the band's facebook profile, but if you go here there are 2 lovely photos of the London show on a blog. I didn't like to steal them though, so go have a look…