ISLANDS
2021 SYNTH-POP/INDIE-POP
Islomania is the latest album from pop and rock eccentric Islands, the musical project of Nick Thorburn. Or rather the formerly eccentric Islands but like all things in life it can be difficult to separate the distorted joys of the past with the here and now; so far removed they might as well be fantasy. Certainly there are plenty of artists who I once heaped praise upon; raving from my lonely soapbox of the necessity to listen, that I now sneer at the very mention. Islands no doubt deserve to be in that category, when was the last time I loved a release? 2006’s Return to the Sea? That coupled with Thorburn’s prior project, The Unicorns, and their sole output that in the years since its release has been canonized into record sainthood, may have well created an endless pool of listening goodwill. Even after all this time I have some expectation of quality from Islands new releases, but Islomania may have very well dried the well to a ground crackling aridity. Islomania is a boring synth-pop record, end of story. What made Thorburn’s best tunes so irresistible is the combination of smile inducing immediacy, and quirkiness; a strength that often evokes quotes like “what the hell is this!? It’s so damn fun!”. Instead this album features a constant stream of anemic hooks, such as the following,
Dance to the song, on and on
We do it with the lights on
We like
We do it with the lights on
This versus the bizarre stories off of tracks like Humans, or unforgettable moments off Who Will Cut Our Hair. It just simply does not compare. They scratch at their old zany joy on Closed Captioning but it remains a blip on the forty one minute experience that can be lost in the slog very easily. The details hardly matter, the short of it is that Islomania is a mediocre pop album that gives itself the most minor of distinctions of having a unique lead vocalist. And yet I will be standing in line to receive another dose upon the next project’s completion, this time a little more detached, holding onto the vaguest of hope.
