Yes, we’ve all seen their wonderful and wonderfully batty David Letterman performance, the stone cold classic pop ‘moment’ that introduced the World to both the showstopping voice and the- shall we say?- ‘eccentric’ performance style of front man Samuel T Herring. In fact, if you didn’t see the name ‘Future Islands’ and immediately burst out the impression that you’ve been working on for the last 9 months then you’re so dismally out of touch that I can only assume it’s a medical condition. Future Islands are easy to mock, but isn’t that a facet of a lot of great pop music? As good as the albums are, I’m willing to best you don’t have an Elbow or Sun Kil Moon ‘bit’ that you break out at parties (you can maybe manage a nice Parklife skit, your Gruff Rhys really needs a Power Rangers helmet to work, while your Ben Frost tribute actually involves you violently gutting half the people in the room and wailing as you smear their blood across your face) whereas Future Islands arrived (a classic four album/six year overnight success) with a style and persona so easy to ape and with their own World you so want to be trapped inside. And the actual music? The music is fabulous, 10 killer choruses, bewitching melodies and brilliant bass lines, not one duff track and some especially heavy highlights.
1/5
