Þursaflokkurinn often written in a simplified way ("Thursaflokkurinn"), is an Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

ic progressive rock

Progressive rock

Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...

 group that was mainly active in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Similar to the Dutch band Focus

Focus (band)

Focus is a Dutch rock band which was founded by classically trained organist/flautist Thijs van Leer in 1969, and is most famous for the instrumental pieces "Hocus Pocus" and "Sylvia"...

 Þursaflokkurinn combined rock music with influences of classical music

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

 and jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

, enhancing their sound by adding elements of Scandinavian folk music

Scandinavian folklore

Scandinavian folklore is the folklore of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and the Swedish speaking parts of Finland.Collecting folklore began when Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden sent out instructions to all of the priests in all of the parishes to collect the folklore of their area...

 and sometimes eccentric vocals resembling the Rock in Opposition

Rock in Opposition

Rock in Opposition or RIO was a movement representing a collective of progressive bands in the late 1970s united in their opposition to the music industry that refused to recognise their music...

 work of, for instance, the Swedish band Samla Mammas Manna

Samla Mammas Manna

Samla Mammas Manna was a Swedish progressive rock band, often characterized by its virtuoso musicianship, circus references and silly humour, similar in many ways to the song-writing styles of Frank Zappa. They were one of the founding members of the Rock in Opposition movement in the late 1970s....

.

Since their foundation in Reykjavík

Reykjavík

Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...

 in the year of 1978 the group consisted of Egill Ólafsson (vocals, keyboards

Keyboard instrument

A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...

 and acoustic guitar

Acoustic guitar

An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...

, guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

ist Þórður Arnason, bassoon

Bassoon

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

ist Rúnar Vilbergsson, bassist

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

 Tómas Magnus Tómasson and drummer Ásgeir Óskarsson.

Between 1978 und 1980 the band mainly played progressive rock with influences of folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

, psychedelic

Psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...

 and jazz rock.
Most of the songs are based on Icelandic folk songs; especially the debut album includes many traditional folk tunes which all have been turned into a progressive rock arrangement.

The second album Þursabit has more psychedelic influences than the 'folkier' debut album and also features more promiment keyboards, for example the Hammond organ

Hammond organ

The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond in 1934 and manufactured by the Hammond Organ Company. While the Hammond organ was originally sold to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, in the 1960s and 1970s it became a standard keyboard...

 (played by the newly recruited keyboarder Karl Sighvatsson) and the electric piano

Electric piano

An electric piano is an electric musical instrument.Electric pianos produce sounds mechanically and the sounds are turned into electrical signals by pickups. Unlike a synthesizer, the electric piano is not an electronic instrument, but electro-mechanical. The earliest electric pianos were invented...

.

The band's 1980 tour is documented by a live album, Á hljómleikum and imports jazz influences into the band's music. Quite striking is a punk rock

Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 track at the end of the album which became a popular and well-known song in Iceland.

The fourth album of the band Gæti eins verið... from the year of 1982 showed a completely new style, the new wave

New Wave music

New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...

 music. The acoustic instruments were nearly completely substituted by synthesizer

Synthesizer

A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

s; keyboarder Karl Sighvattson and bassoonist Rúnar Vilbergsson had left the band.

After some records for a new album in 1983 and 1984 the band split. One reason was the fact that the band's success did not progress to other countries than Iceland. Egill Ólafsson started working as a writer and was a member in the band Stuðmenn in which other Þursaflokkurinn musicians were also playing.

Sometimes the band met again for one-off-performances, for example for the memorial for Karl Sighvattson who died in 1991.

For their 30th anniversary in February 2008 all the albums were reissued in a mini-vinyl

Gramophone record

A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...

-box with a CD

Compact Disc

The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

 full of previously unissued tracks and live versions. In addition there is a tour going through Iceland since early 2008 with the small orchestra Capút; a live CD/DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 has been issued in late November 2008 with the title Hinn íslenski Þursaflokkur og Caput.

Útgáfur

• Hinn íslenzki Þursaflokkur (1978)
• Þursabit (1979)
• Á hljómleikum (1980)
• Gæti eins verið... (1982)
• Nútíminn - Bestu lög Þursaflokksins 1978-1982 (best of collection) (2000)
• Þursar (all the four albums from 1978 to 1982) (2008)
  • includes: Ókomin forneskjan (outtake collection)
• Hinn íslenski Þursaflokkur og Caput (2008)