42 was formed in a garage in Kópavogur, Iceland nearly 20 years ago, when the members were about fourteen years old,hence the silly name (translated the name would be Sneakers #42). Originally the band played Thrash or Speed Metal but evolved into a fully fledged Death Metal band after a year or so and stuck with that for a while. At that time in Iceland, Death Metal was quite popular and countless bands sporting weird evil sounding latin names lifted from medical textbooks emerged. Despite the silly, “benevolent” name, Strigaskór built a name for themselves and quickly became one of the top acts on that scene. The band appeared on a split CD in 1993 with In Memoriam and Sororocide but shortly afterwards the Death Metal scene began to fizzle out with bands either quitting or evolving their sound.
Strigaskór chose the latter option and in 1994 the bands first full length album, Blót, was released to critical acclaim. Since then the album, unavailable for several years, has become somewhat of a cult thing among music lovers in Iceland. The band however continued to evolve and change and the next project was the musical score in a play in 1995. The play was Baal, written by Berthold Brecht and the music was vastly different to the layered, complex ten minute long epics of Blót. The Baal stuff was short, energetic and raw but nonetheless it ́s clearly the same band. Mix a couple of the songs from that play with newer material, and you have Armadillo.