Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2008 > June > 24 > Entry
Island at Emo’s
Earlier this week, Islands frontman Nick Thorburn told local blog Austinist that the respect paid to journalists (and A&R and marketing people) is way out of proportion to the respect paid to “artists” like himself, and that the artists are the people who work the hardest.
Comments like that leave reviewers with options as polarizing as Islands’ new album, “Arm’s Way,” its glorious pop sheen inching the band away from the vaunted indie realm and closer to the dreaded mainstream.
Option 1: Give Islands negative coverage to get back at Thorburn. (Obviously, we’d never do that.) Option 2: Give Islands positive coverage to show Thorburn his comments don’t mean a thing. (Ditto.) Respectfully, of course, this reviewer opted for somewhere in between for the Montreal band’s Monday show at Emo’s.
It began with the slow and calculated build-up of “Vertigo (If It’s a Crime)” from the new album. Guitars, keys, and drums found their way as the sextet’s odd player out vacillated between maracas, violin, and a giant chain that created a mesmerizing sound effect when jingled. Right when the predominantly under-21 crowd was about to fall asleep from all the noodling on the “gothic symphony in three acts,” Islands transitioned into “The Arm,” a triumphant song about divine intervention.
Complex arrangements and lyrics both personal and fantastical — Thorburn’s epic narratives ranged from beating cancer to tracking sasquatches to the murder of a fisherman by a group of teenagers — were what Islands did best. Where they lacked was in sense of purpose. Thorburn was stiff as a board, complained about playing the awesome hip-hop song “Where There’s a Will There’s a Whalebone” from their debut album, “Return to the Sea,” and — worst of all — wore a white T-shirt with a red blotch over his heart, creating the illusion that it was bleeding. Apparently, Thorburn doesn’t know that respect is a two-way street.
Comments
Click here to report comment abuse.
By Jennifer
June 24, 2008 5:51 PM | Link to this
A reviewer might want to do their research and at least spell the band’s name properly : It’s Islands, not Island. ;-)
By Joel
June 27, 2008 1:34 PM | Link to this
We have a video of “Creeper” from their instore at Waterloo.
http://ultra8201.blogspot.com/2008/06/last-night-islands-at-waterloo-records.html