For bands in the all too broad category of Indie Rock, especially the ones your niece has heard of, musical content has taken a Chevy Suburban-sized back seat to looking sharp and sexy in a sleeve-rolled plaid button down. Even the drummers give a commendable attempt at intellectuality… intellectity… trying to look smart.
That said, the new Islands album Vapours is pretty darn good.
Evolving nicely from The Unicorn days, Canadian-born Nicolas Thorburn continues to showcase a knack at creating an engaging (maybe even motivational) atmosphere for both ear and brain. His music makes you wanna do something relatively kinda almost productive, even. And if you’re thinking to start jogging, or to at least do the dishes, the title track will put that swing in ‘yer step needed to counter the impulse to lie on the couch until the constructive urge goes away. Blending the yucky sax quite successfully with rich layers of vocal harmony, it’s the kind of tune you just want to get up and tell everyone about, as if you wrote it or something.
Unusual to the group, whose prior albums were scattered with 9 minute songs, this record is refreshingly short and sweet. Their previous Return to the Sea and Arm’s Way, both triumphs, were slowed a bit through extended duration (excluding Return to the Sea’s ‘Swans’ which may very well be the greatest non-Built To Spill 9 1/2 minute song ever).
A master of keyboard functions, Thorburn’s Br. Danielson-like voice meshes perfectly with unique and thoughtfully structured atmospheric experimentation. Even ‘Heartbeat,’ where he sings into the T-Pain iPhone app, is one helluva song. It has this Men At Work thing going for it that makes you think of happy stuff.
Surprisingly, a drum track is used throughout most of the album. With the spastically creative drummer, Jaime Thompson now back in the group after a two-year absence, more personality to the rhythmic backbone was expected. Thompson must’ve returned too late in the recording process. This guy’s really good.
Download Islands, download The Unicorns, download all things linked to Nicolas Thorburn. Screw your hesher friends that say otherwise… and don’t let the tacky album covers scare you.
Related posts:
