Icelandic Band Mesmerizes Millions Online With Impromptu Train Station Performance

When you think of musical acts from Iceland, Björk is probably the first one that comes to mind. If you are more hip to contemporary music, perhaps you gravitate toward the indie rock group Of Monsters and Men. The band's song "Little Talks" became a No. 1 hit on the Billboard U.S. Alternative Songs chart in 2012.

Fast forward one year later. The band Árstíðir was in a train station in Wuppertal, Germany, and decided to break into song. They sang a 13th century Icelandic hymn whose title translates to "Hear, Heaven Carpenter." The Icelandic quartet published a video of the impromptu performance to its YouTube channel back in September 2013.

Just a month after the initial upload, it had accumulated more than 215,000 views. About 9 months later, the video is still gaining a lot of popularity online and has amassed almost 2.8 million hits.

The latest push seems to come from a number of sources, including Michael Baker, whose Google + page has over 3 million views.

"I dare you to listen to this with your eyes closed and nothing else going on and not be transported," he said with his post of the clip.

Dennis Lowery also shared the video in the past week, commenting, "Beautiful... What Happens When You Sing An 800 Year Old Icelandic Hymn In A Train Station..." His Google + page has 1.4 million views.

Daníel Auðunsson, Gunnar Már Jakobsson, Karl James Pestka, and Ragnar Ólafsson comprise Árstíðir, which is slated to release its third studio album this September.