Islands “Return To The Sea” Review

Islands is the ultimate summation of talents from a group of musicians from Montreal, with members from acclaimed, defunct band the Unicorns. Forming in 2005, the band saw a rotational membership in which musicians came and left, but ultimately became a solid six piece. The band later opened for Beck at the Pop Montreal Music Festival which turned into an all out tour and the rest is, how they say, history.

Return to the Sea is completely full of playful, delicate space folk. But don’t mistake them as a Canadian version of Animal Collective, or anything along those lines, because in the grand scheme of things, the two aren’t all that alike. I mean, really… instead of all that blurry musical magic, there’s handclapping and whistling.

What I find so genuinely enjoyable is how the band melds an absolutely innocent musical background with puzzling lyrics (“Rough Gem”) in one track and moves forward with a strange, synth-strong walk on the moon (“Tsuxiit”) in the next. I suppose that’s the beauty of the band though; such broad concepts which have no real reason for working together, but they do. “Where There’s a Will There’s a Whalebone” takes a electronic-heavy rock song and blends it into an all out hip hop experience. “Jogging Gorgeous Summer” jumps into a tropicalia fueled beach fiesta, further fueling my wonder of how this album sincerely flows without reason. Damn, starting to sound like Animal Collective, huh?

Strangely enough, the album’s softer, slower songs are what brings it together. Instead of going further into a strange realm of musical diversity simply to add more flair to the album, tracks like “If” and “One” balance out the bizarre. Oh, and I don’t know if I covered this or not, but Islands are really nothing like Animal Collective.