Future Islands bring the past alive on their latest studio record.
Whenever you see anything about Future Islands it can seem like the writer is somehow contractually obliged to mention that Letterman performance and the subsequent bridgehead it gave them into the mainstream. That was ten years ago however, and times have very definitely changed.
The Baltimorean quartet – ever-distinguishable vocalist Samuel T. Herring, Gerrit Welmers on keyboards, plus William Cashion (bass) and Michael Lowry (drums) – catalysed the worldwide attention gained with their remarkable version of Seasons (Waiting On You), following up its host album Singles with 2017’s The Far Field and, three years later, As Long As You Are.
The latter was a bittersweet experience for all concerned, written in the wake of Herring’s relocation to Sweden after his relationship with actress Julia Ragnarsson bloomed. It nevertheless went the way of many pandemic projects, stalling with the group unable to tour. Separation also had other unforeseen, more personal effects, and People Who Aren’t There Anymore sees Herring processing how his life has again shifted in the wake of a divorce.
Speaking candidly, the singer has admitted that the material straddles both the up and down rollercoaster curves of that period, the intent to seek closure whilst the Future Islands the public know still finds less intense solace in their approachable synth pop.
This mindset allowed the trademark sounding opener King Of Sweden to make the cut despite its potential to dredge up an uncomfortable recent past. Bedded in with an insistent keyboard riff from Cashion, the erstwhile romantic of it is being taken back to adolescence, ‘Feeling like I’m 15, wandering with The Misfits’, touching the outline of what it was when it was still full of hope.
Or maybe not: since the disconnect and with the benefit of perspective, the impression they leave for Herring is different, as exemplified by another pre-breakup song The Tower, where the affirmation is, ‘I’m watching and I’m waiting / I’m not breaking’, but now in the rear view mirror the realisation is that the song is not about a lover but someone resigned to losing what they had.
It’s a fascinating juxtaposition, like an old friend who pours everything into everything despite the risks those closest can plainly see. The intervening years have also seen Lowry become more involved in the creative process, the beat at the centre of the redemptory anthem Iris inspired by the obscure 1978 debut of Niger’s Mamman Sani, whilst Cashion’s salvaging of broken equipment litters and gently evolves the sound palate here and there.
That sense of melodrama was by definition the quality that people watching that talk show and seeing the band for the first time instinctively connected with. There are no great departures here in sound from what fans of any era have come to expect, and in Say Goodbye (lyrical excerpt: ‘I just need to make this world seem right/You just sleep tight, til I’m on your side’) they sound not jaded but somehow rejuvenated, as if the adversity has taken them to a different creative plane.
This world often mimics an extended drop in at someone else’s therapy session, with intimate closer The Garden Wheel offering a hint of acceptance and a subject who, given time, will once more start to look forward.
People Who Aren’t There Anymore is an emblematic title, nodding to more than just an individual but also, the band admit, to former versions of themselves left behind either deliberately or by simple fate.
Not a new Future Islands but a changed one, its honesty and purpose allows those left behind to show they’re much more than ghosts.
