If music aims to sponsor religious devotion, of what creed are Islands? On Arm’s Way (Anti, 2008), the Canadian band’s second album in as many years, we get a tangle of stylistic whims, idiosyncratically stitched together like a faith cobbled from the snippets of many sacred texts. As a result, what’s left to believe in is less a holistic doctrine than a screed, a ransom note forged of bits and pieces whose unifying element is its miscellany. To dig on Islands, you are committing yourself less to a sound or a vision than a guru, pinning yourself to his flights of fancy wherever they may lead.
Perhaps this is inevitable, what with Islands being the phoenix that rose from the ashes of Unicorns, the fantastically popular (if also very weird) Canadian crew of the early 2000s. Today Islands continues with Nick Thorburn as singer and guitarist and Jaime Thompson on drums. They’ve punched up the production here to be crisper and brighter and forged a more accessible, albeit still akimbo, doorway into their sound. Thorburn, who also goes by the name Nick Diamond, has a precious, ironic, sometimes nerdy delivery, sliding between the breathy arrogance of Jarvis Cocker and the fanciful existentialism of Wayne Coyne. Musically, they wander diverse territory: psychedelic to twee, rockabilly to alt.country, pop to mod. Their songscapes are vast and shifting, schizophrenic in their meter, tempo, key, and style. Especially on longer tracks, such as “In the Rushes” and “Vertigo,” the orchestral nature of the songwriting means the tracks almost have movements, making sharp turns in thought patterns like the memes of a madman. Again, this capriciousness in itself is the key to unlocking Arm’s Way, so that one might enjoy the militaristic marching of “The Arm” just as much as the urgent quasi-punk-cum-Carribeanbop of “J’aime Vous Voire Quitter” or the danceable rocker “Creeper.” Lyrics? Whatever. The singalong tracks are few and far between here (although “Creeper” is a nice one), and you might not know exactly what you’re saying, anyway.
It works, mostly, but it does sometimes make Arm’s Way feel less like an album than a collection of songs (themselves a smorgasbord of genres), which is probably appropriate given the shuffle-y way most of us consume our music. Seems the minds behind Arm’s Way are on shuffle, too, refusing to be pinned down by that genre or another, producing scattershot melodies and obtuse language poetry. These are the changes technology demands, for sure, but what it makes for the fate of the album I’m less certain about. And Islands, seemingly, share my doubt.
