Islands
Arm's Way
Anti- Records
By Eavvon O'Neal
Nick Diamond (aka Nick Thorburn) has transformed promotion into clouded pontification in preparation for the release of his second album under the Islands masthead. He's suggested that this album will help to separate his new project from the lore that surround hipster darling The Unicorns. Return To The Sea was a huge effort in the vastness of its sounds, and the obscurity of its lyrics and Arm's Way makes great strides towards eclipsing its predecessor. Still, while trying to experiment with newer and larger arrangements, Islands stray from what is more likely their main focus, according to Nick: a great pop effort.
“The Arm “ opens very much like “Swans” opened Return To The Sea, with a tangential melody that builds to crescendo right before a quick drop into the lyrics. The varying structure of each song shows a very nimble hand in dedication to which instruments get more focus in the mix. The first single, “Creeper,” shows this with dueling guitars and low staccato violins which move into a slow pull back and forth during the bridge, ultimately dumping into an almost dance break ending. These dance breaks and percussion patterns add to Nick's interest in pop variation and are a few shades away from 808 drums on a snap track. Still this only proves to be one half of the Islands approach to this album, with the second half giving more perceptive to their writing abilities.
Beginning with “Kids Don't Know Shit”, there is a larger concentration on lyrics that have some connection to, well, realistic imagery. With a large portion of Islands’ songs, there is a huge element of absurdity and seems almost as a nod to magical realism that would make Gabriel Garcia Marquez giggle. The oddly violent, yet mostly ridiculous elements of the songs make for good topics yet partition us listenin’ folk from the core of Nick’s search for meaning and validation of adolescent turned adult sensitivities. That’s the service he looks to provide, and we all have observed this maturity in development from the span of projects Nick has touched coming since Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Dead landed as a hit and the dust cleared with the Unicorns as big of a myth as their namesake. But you have to ask yourself, is maturity really growth?
“In The Rushes” and “We Swim” (which crawls like a gently weeping guitar) illustrate some of Islands’ best work in terms of tension, building a connection to their lyrics and helping Arm’s Way several steps passed decent. “Vertigo (If It's A Crime)” knits this album and its central focus together in an interesting fashion by completely fucking with the ideal goal of “pop song,” knocking out at the 11-minute plus mark. The ambiguous lyrics of this song help sell Islands search for the perfect song and its ability to allude anyone and reassures us that through all of the indie rock superstar dome, this band is just an extension of musicians just trying to land on solid ground.
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