Album Review: Future Islands - As Long As You Are

Breaking a three-year dry spell, Future Islands follow up on recent singles with a longplayer designed to satisfy fans as well as win the hearts of a few new ones.

This album doesn’t signify any major change of stylistic direction for Future Islands. Much of the band’s sound is centred around the dreamy ripple and fizz of J Gerrit Welmers’ synthesisers, which tend toward entrancing atmospherics but often are tricked-out with hooks and snappy beats, totally ready to party. William Cashion’s New Order-esque bass licks owe much to the Peter Hook school of playing, but it is interesting to note that Cashion also has a solo project that recently released some delicately fluid ambient music. Singer and songwriter Samuel T Herring drives this album with songs of heartbreak that wrestle with past romantic failure while facing the future with a certain sadness and dread. Herring’s deep vocals don’t come with the silk of Tindersticks' Stuart Staples or the weathered age of Tom Waits, but weirdly his passionate throaty rawness brings to mind Bonnie Tyler totally eclipsing the heart. Delivering tear-stained moments of dark sadness make the gloriously optimistic vibes of Waking and Plastic Beach feel just that much more life-affirming in the end.