Review - Islands live in Montreal, May 28th

by Tessa Smith

I liked that last night’s concert at Le National was all ages, along with the rest of Islands‘ Canadian and American tour dates. I guess the demographics of their fanbase sort of necessitate it.

Scroll down for videos from the show…

The opening band was The Magic who basically do everything they should do as good indie rock kids. Have a listen to their myspace. Each song has enough tricks and changes to be satisfying and well-paced. I find the lead singer’s voice under-trained for Ivy League dance pop while silly keyboards won’t let them just be sloppy guitar rockers. But they’re having fun and making an effort, so I won’t write them off entirely. If they want to make their music sustainable, I think it would be a better use of the singer’s voice to move closer to the weirder bits in their songs and see what they can do from there.

Islands, on the other hand, have married the messy with the smooth. They’re a skilled group of musicians writing tight pop music to compliment singer Nick Thorburn’s signature whispering falsetto. Strings and horns are used wisely and the rhythm section is solid. Although I generally have an aversion to, for example, the polished sound of a well-mic’d drumkit, they write songs that require a certain amount of session-style playing, and that’s just a matter of taste.

As performers, Islands are dynamic and playful. Their central trope is something like a frowning clown who scurries around in a good black suit. I cringed at Nick’s dramatically flat delivery of between song comments like, “It’s great to be back. It’s like we went to the year 1959 and then came back…and nothing’s changed…in a good way.” But I don’t go to a lot of their shows, so maybe that’s part of his painted-white personality. More importantly, their music is a lot less contrived than most of the songs on their fans’ iPods.

Reviewers of Islands’ new album, Arm’s Way have commented on its darkness, and the band seemed self-conscious about “bringing us down” by playing too many slow songs. Many of the new tracks do take their time to develop and brood a bit, but they’re only ever depressing in the style of 80s love ballads. If Islands are a downer (which it seems like they’ve considered becoming), the calculated campiness of their live show ensures that they’ll still be read as a poppy downer.

People were already screaming for an encore before they finished the last song of their set.

Videos from Islands at Le National - May 28th 2008