Live Review: Future Islands @ Forum Melbourne

Today Future Islands are surely one of pop culture's most dynamic bands, reinventing synthwave, post-punk and occasionally hardcore. And their latest Australian tour has been a triumph.

The Baltimore, Maryland quartet – with magnetic frontman Samuel T Herring, keyboardist Gerrit Welmers, bassist/guitarist William Cashion and newly full-time drummer Mike Lowry – were last in Australia in late 2017, hitting Meredith Festival. That now seems a lifetime ago… 

Future Islands broke through in 2014 with an elevated fourth album, Singles, on 4AD. The gorgeous single Seasons (Waiting On You) went viral when they guested on the Late Show With David Letterman – Herring's singular, and visceral, performance captivated viewers. The group played 2014's Splendour In The Grass, then Laneway where, on the Melbourne leg, Flying Lotus watched, engrossed.

Andrew Briscoe

In 2017 Future Islands followed Singles with The Far Field, encompassing ever more lustrous fare (including a duet with Blondie's Debbie Harry). Surprisingly, the band subsequently expressed profound ambivalence towards what they felt was a rushed and compromised project as they promoted album six, As Long As You Are (ALAYA), in late 2020, amid the throes of the pandemic. 

At that time, Herring was engaged to Swedish actress Julia Ragnarsson (The Bridge) and planning a permanent move to Sweden. Alas, Future Islands couldn't tour behind ALAYA – explaining why they've visited Australia outside a promo cycle, another album expected this year. But, at the Forum, the band's devoted fanbase were enthralled, the jubilant energy of the thirtysomethings in attendance conspicuously surpassing that witnessed for Fred again.. at Laneway. The Melbourne show, the final stop on a four-date Australian run, was long sold-out.

Opening for Future Islands was the mysterious Melbourne act Glass Beams in band mode, recreating avant-garde (and instrumental) psychedelia.

Andrew Briscoe

Curiously, Future Islands didn't concentrate on ALAYA but rather revisited their catalogue – actually reaching back to their pre-Singles forays, beginning with 2008's Wave Like Home. They launched with ALAYA's rousing For Sure, segueing into the summery escape Hit The Coast – a peak. But, even early, Future Islands revived Ran, the new-wave lead single from The Far Field, suggesting that they've re-evaluated it.

Future Islands' material is accentuated live (who remembered Ancient Water, again off The Far Field, being such a bop?) Indeed, the synth tracks sounded more celestial (cue: the poignant Moonlight) and the indie more rhythmic and dancey – Cashion' bass rivalling that of New Order's Peter Hook. Herring – at heart a bluesman – at times growled, snarled and rasped like a closet screamo vocalist, conceivably channelling Disturbed's David Draiman for a frenetic Walking Through That Door, the prelude to 2010's sophomore album, In Evening Air. 

Among the audience's favourites was Singles' hyper-emotive Light House. However, the show's centrepiece was a euphoric Seasons (Waiting On You). The only lull was A Song For Our Grandfathers, vital after Light House's Blue Monday vibes.

Andrew Briscoe

Future Islands played their two standalone singles since ALAYA – the most recent being last year's glistening King Of Sweden, which a chatty Herring wryly introduced by way of an intimation that his five-year epic romance with Sweden, and Ragnarsson, is over.

Still, the truly idiosyncratic aspect of the night was that Future Islands performed so much pre-Singles repertoire, drawing heavily on In Evening Air, as if to underscore the arbitrariness of their 2014 success or simply to expose a slept-on era. Near the end, they played consecutive throwbacks, Tin Man especially experimental. 

Ironically, all this came at the expense of ALAYA cuts such as Thrill or the socio-political Born In A War or perhaps an older fan rave like the quasi-metal ballad Fall From Grace. Yet the always unique Future Islands succeeded in generating their own nostalgia-core, closing with Wave Like Home's Little Dreamer – another song about lost love. They really can't return to Australia soon enough.

Andrew Briscoe