Rough Gem : Islands
Saturday, July 4th, 2009
Album: Return To The Sea 2006
Born from the indie-pop ashes of the favorite underground band The Unicorns in 2005, Return to the Sea is the debut album of a great new Canadian band (Montreal to be exact). In fact there has been a lot of good music coming from Canada lately (Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, New ographers, Feist, etc.) and Islands are riding that wave. Where The Unicorns (and a lot of other similar bands from the indie rock tree) were chaotic, lo-fi experimenters in the stranger side of indie-pop, Islands are a much more mature and emotional band, adding a variety of new instruments to their repertoire, some unusual to what you’ve heard from other indie-popsters (i.e. strings, accordions, upright bass, etc.) for a much more adult and often whimsical sound. You don’t have to be a fan of The Unicorns or indie-pop in general to like this album , all you need is two functioning ears and two hands to clap along.
What really stands out for me in this album is the ludicrous and often surreal lyrics like “You can Scoop out my brain /Shape it into an ear and then tell me your pain” –just par for the course in this album. The most appropriate way I can describe these guys is that they’re strangly lovable and lovably strange. It’s too bad that this band doesn’t get more exposure and recognition.
Much thanks to Equator Records for releasing this album. ISLANDS ARE FOREVER!
Go buy the rest of their albums too.
My personal favorites are
Rough Gem
Volcanoes
Swans (Life After Death)
Duration : 0:3:37