First Impressions: Islands - Arm's Way

When I left Whelan's back in February having seen Islands play one of their first gigs in a long time despite my disappointment at the somewhat curtailed set I was feeling really enthusiastic about the slew of new material that they'd showcased that night. It seemed far more epic and grand than the material that had featured on Return To The Sea or anything that Nick Thorburn (neé Diamonds) had done as a Unicorn for that matter. My one fear was that much of the material sounded a little samey.

Aside from the sheer brilliance of many of the songs the great thing about the first Islands album, which featured a core trio plus numerous Montreal scene luminaries, was the way it dipped so effortlessly into Various styles. Country, calypso, post-rock and underground hip-hop all got a look in. Touching upon so many different styles was a big risk but due to the strength of the material it worked.

Islands in it's current incarnation is a far more settled 6-member band and because of that perhaps it's understandable that their second album has a much more uniform sound. And it's early days so I'm not sure whether or not if that's the reason that I don't like this album as much as the last one but it does feel a little like it's a one trick pony. That shouldn't matter really, there's plenty of albums which sound consistent that I love, so I think there's only one other possibility. The songs just aren't as good.

That's not to say that it's a bad album or that the songs are bad it's just that Islands set themselves such a high standard last time around and the fact they've failed to match it, much as fellow Montrealers Arcade Fire "failed" with Neon Bible (though I still really liked that record), is a disappointment. Third times the charm though and Wolf Parade have a new album out in a few months.

MP3: Islands - I Feel Evil Creeping In from Arm's Way.