a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1133/636/1600/Islands%20Return%20To%20The%20Sea.jpg”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1133/636/320/Islands%20Return%20To%20The%20Sea.jpg” alt=”" border=”0″ //aIslands 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.br /span style=”font-style: italic;”Return to the Sea/span 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.br /br /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?br /br /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 bizaar. Oh, and I don’t know if I covered this or not, but Islands are really nothing like Animal Collective.br /br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1133/636/1600/4%20stars.4.jpg”img style=”cursor: pointer;” src=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1133/636/200/4%20stars.4.jpg” alt=”" border=”0″ //abr /br /a href=”http://search.insound.com/search/showrelease.jsp?from=37171p=INS28832″Buy Return to the Sea from Insound/abr /br /a href=”http://audio.sxsw.com/2006/mp3/Islands-Dont_call_me_Witney_Bobby.mp3″Islands “Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby”/a span style=”font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);”(mp3)/spanbr /a href=”http://equatormusic.ca/islands/165457684.mp3″Islands “Rough Gem”/a span style=”font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);”(mp3)/spanbr /br /a href=”http://www.islandsareforever.com/”Islands – Official Site/abr /a href=”http://www.myspace.com/islandsareforever”Islands – MySpace Site/a span style=”font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);”(4 songs)br /br //spana onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1133/636/1600/Islands.jpg”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1133/636/320/Islands.jpg” alt=”" border=”0″ //a