RETURN TO THE SEA

Islands debut album was a charming, if uneven, release of indie/psychadelic music with a pop edge. The band was formed from the ashes of a band called The Unicorns, and although I am not at all familiar with that band, I hear that this is the album that most closely resembles them.

There are a lot of really interesting tracks on this album. My favorites would be Swans (Life After Death), Rough Gem, and Tsuxiit - which, if you check the track listing, you will see is fairly front loaded. Each of these tracks has something unique about it. Swans is the most psychadelic sounding, with acoustic guitars, odd keyboards, and the strangely relaxing vocals (with lines like "I woke up thirsty the day I died") all create a song that is a small trip in and of itself. Rough Gem is just plain catchy, and Tsuxiit is a really odd sound collage composed mostly of synthetic sounds.

The mix of different sounds doesn't end there; the rap-like vocals of Where There's a Will, There's a Whalebone work strangely well, and the doomsday-esque intro to Volcanoes gives the song a fair amount of character.

Where the album suffers is from the moments where the band didn't seem to find the creative groove that makes the previously mentioned tracks so enjoyable. The rest of the album sits somewhere between decent to boring indie pop (to my ears), and really brings down the overall score of the album.

Regardless, this album is worth a listen for the tracks that are more creative, especially if you are also a fan of the indie/pop scene, as this album (to my ears) represents a pretty good crossover between that scene and the prog scene.