Islands

“Return to the Sea”

(Equator)

4 Stars



Image changes are hard to pull off. Ask Gary Coleman, or JC Chasez—once you’re classified by your audience, abandoning your niche can be a perilous career move.

While perhaps not as disposable as either of the aforementioned entertainers, Montreal’s The Unicorns were celebrated as much for their kitsch as their music on 2003’s “Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?” Songs like “Jellybones” and “Sea Ghost” cast them as inventive, attractive indie popsters, no more and no less. Despite the album’s initial success, the band broke up shortly thereafter.

Now, former Unicorns Nicholas Diamonds and Jaime T’ambour are recording as Islands, attempting with “Return to the Sea” to exchange the previous band’s levity for something closer to gravity.

While fans may cringe upon hearing that the album’s first track is nearly 10 minutes long, the truth is that Islands have pulled off their metamorphosis beautifully.

“Return” chronicles human despair and those who try to escape it, largely within the familiar arena of love. The songs all have a vaguely cinematic air; each one focuses on a different mini-drama and advances the moderately bleak portrait that the album establishes.

There are missteps, as on the lyrically bizarre “If,” but these occasional blemishes can’t mar the beauty of the album’s grander, more moving songs—ironically, those tracks most indebted to older music. For example, the slow-burning opener, “Swans (Life After Death),” follows the same sonic arc as Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” as a subdued introduction simmers to a major key climax before burning out in an extended, guitar-wanking, minor-key conclusion. The muddy, intoxicated instrumentation of “Where There’s A Will There’s A Whalebone” quotes a section of Jimi Hendrix’s “Third Stone from the Sun” just before entering a borderline-psychotic rap by L.A. emcee Busdriver.

Musical cameos aside, the instrumentation is by far the album’s most stunning virtue. The rhythm section locks tightly into the groove of each song, demonstrating the type of communication you’d expect from a polished jazz combo. As a result, rhythm becomes a dramatic device, one that clearly delineates the border between honest and sarcastic lyrics.

Nowhere is this more true than on “Rough Gem.” The first two verses employ the metaphor of diamond mining to illustrate the the dogged pursuit of a dream. Aptly named singer Diamond assumes the voice of that fantasy, suggesting that “you can scoop out my brain, shape it into an ear and then tell me your pain.” However, the staccato snare drum and terse eighth-note basslines give the impression that something is awry. The feel is too flawless, too mechanized to match the emotions encapsulated in the lyrics.

Only when the rhythm section underpins the legato synthesizer with flowing double-stops does the band’s real message become clear: no dream can be so perfect. “Dig deep, but don’t dig too deep,” Diamond pleads, “when it’s late you’ll see the hole is empty and oh so deadly.”

This tension between irony and earnestness may be a well-traveled path for indie rock bands, but it’s one that Islands treads remarkably well. They’ve joined the fold of groups that take themselves seriously—and with a cache of material like that presented on “Return to the Sea,” it’s hard not to emulate their perception.

—Reviewer Nicholas K. Tabor can be reached at ntabor@fas.harvard.edu.