Album Review: Future Islands, People Who Aren't There Anymore

The seventh album from Baltimore quartet, Future Islands, sees them continue what they have been quietly doing since their 2008 debut, Wave Like Home: creating catchy, synth-driven pop that stands up to both repeated listens and intense scrutiny. Their lyrics delve deeper than the average pop song into the human condition and the knotty reality of relationships.

Take recent single, ‘Say Goodbye’, where frontman Samuel T. Herring explains, “When I wake up at dawn, I reach across the void / Just hoping we can share a moment’s time”, or ‘Peach’, where he intones, “Life is imperfect bodies and perfect sounds / Death is in season and it’s pushing me round.” It’s safe to say Herring’s writing doesn’t come from the joy/boy/toy rhyming system beloved of many pop acts.

His delivery too elevates Future Islands above the pile, the dramatic baritone adding a resonance to the chirpy pop-chops of his fellow band members, William Cashion (bass, guitars), Gerrit Welmers (keyboards, programming) and Michael Lowry (drums).

Highlights are many, including ‘King Of Sweden’, driven by a propulsive 4/4 beat and shimmering synths; the stately state-of-the-nation address that is ‘The Sickness’; the head-wobblingly catchy ‘The Tower’; the uber-addictive ‘Iris’; and the frantic energy of ‘Give Me The Ghost Back’, which practically demands a frenzy of ‘80s-tastic dad dancing. Speaking of that decade, ‘Deep in The Night’ features a musical backdrop that could have been lifted wholesale from one of the ‘80s’ infamous torch songs; the love anthem from a Tom Cruise movie that never was.

Consistently impressive.

8/10