Published on May 23, 2006
Though this is the debut album for Islands, they’re
hardly newcomers to the music scene; Islands is the rebirth of The
Unicorns, a Canadian indie band founded in 2000 that released three
albums before imploding and scattering into different directions.
Islands was formed by vocalist Nicholas Thorburn (alias Nick
Diamonds) and Jamie Thompson (J’aime Tambeur) on drums. The rest of
the band features a constantly rotating roster of players,
including Sarah Neufeld and Richard Perry on violin and upright
bass, from The Arcade Fire.
Return To The Sea is erratic, to say the
least. Or, according to Diamonds, “more diverse and sprawling and
ambitious.” It leaps from calypso to spurts of rock that can only
be described as jaunty and then to hip-hop for a brief interlude.
Only a few seconds into this album, I had a friend question why I
was listening to space-age alien techno; thankfully, that’s one
genre Islands has left out.
The disc opens with “Swans (Life After Death),” a
swirling, epic track with gorgeously messy orchestration. It’s a
somewhat unlikely opener, clocking in at over nine minutes, but
Islands make it work with their mix of quietly effective, plaintive
lyrics and soaring soundscapes.
Islands never seem to stay rooted down for long,
though, reworking the feel set by “Swans” into the strangely bouncy
ode to the destruction of civilization, “Humans.” The starkly
haunting lyrics are offset by music that would’ve sounded right at
home in The Arcade Fire’s debut, Funeral.
Next up is “Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby,” which,
even though it’s lacking a chorus like the entire disc, is
instantly catchy regardless, cheerful even with its refrain,
“Bones, bones, brittle little bones / It’s not the milk you seek /
It’s the sun you need.”
“Rough Gem,” which is beginning to garner airplay, is
another notable point of Return To The Sea, whose main riff
is played by almost-cartoon synths, keyboards and plucked violin
strings throughout the song’s length. Meanwhile, Diamonds plays on
his own nickname with lyrics like “They want me raw and smooth like
glass / They want it fast but they don’t want flaws / I’m a girl’s
best friend / Can you cut, I can cut, ’cause I’m a rough gem.”
Other standouts are “Jogging Gorgeous Summer,” the
aptly-titled foray into calypso; the lazily paced, mellow “If” and
“Ones,” which ends the album with a dark, almost Radiohead feel
with crashing symbols and ending with the line “We all live in our
heads, our legs, our toes, our eyes, our throats, homes…”
before a long fadeout.
The best thing about Islands is that they’re always
charting new waters, never anchoring Return To The Sea for
too long before searching out new ground. It’s definitely an
enjoyable ride.