After rendering their synthpop sound within wafts of slow-burn melodies for the past decade, their recent output puts back the bombast in their asset in a big way. ‘People Who Aren’t There Anymore’ carries Future Islands’ consistent sonic and thematic palette with heightened energy that allows them to bloom with the band’s impeccable production, melodies, and writing to date.
For a band that has been going in their consistent sonic wheelhouse for around a decade now, the occurrence of them touching upon the energetic side of their synth-pop and indie pop gamut has been few and far between. While they have been doing more intimate, subtle compositions on their past projects that also include fizzier textures, there have been those few instances where their uptick in compositional energy does shine through, especially on a project like ‘Singles’ shows how much the band lands their sound in potent results due to the increase of soaring melodic swerves alongside the smoother production courtesy on their signing with 4AD. However, they went back on their usual simmering formula on ‘The Far Field’ with mixed results - mostly due to the production stumbling way too hard this time - that gets tuned with ‘As Long As You Are’, that consistency is starting to show its fickle weak points in how they take their overall position in their sound in slight directions.
However, in ‘People Who Aren’t There Anymore’, the band immediately went back to that bombastic flair that they trod on ‘Singles’, a decision in the right direction that further allows them to go back to sweeping energy that they should’ve peppered towards their projects for the past decade. It still carries the sonic consistency the band always carried around since their debut project, but the investment towards putting in more energetic grooves and quicker tempos carries so much quality within a lot of these tracks. ‘King of Sweden’ for instance opens up with pumping grooves, colorful synth patches, and a sticky hook courtesy of Samuel T. Herring’s distinct sharp vocal tone. It’s an immediate standout that shows more color on every subsequent track, and with the stronger production that’s carried from their 2020 project alongside Samuel Herring’s ridiculously exciting presence on the microphone and better-crafted melodies on both the ballads and the bangers, the greatness just keeps flowing more and more. The sweeping pulse of ‘Peach’ and ‘Iris’ from its shuffling low-end are joyous as the performances stand firm amidst their flashy patterns, the ebb-and-flow rhythms of ‘The Tower’ and ‘Say Goodbye’ is nothing short of magnetic where the control of dynamics allow their overall melodies to stick out even more, the echoing synth-wave of ‘Give Me The Ghost Back’ just engulfs into a glorious tempest of a banger from front to back, and the slower cuts such as ‘Deep In The Night’ and ‘Corner of My Eye’ carries such beauty with the gleaming waves of synths parched on their shoulders. And as much as there is consistently bright charm painted within a lot of the production and the melodies, there are cuts where the melodies of a few songs just don’t stick out from the rest despite their compositions still coming off decent enough and the momentum falters a bit on the back half of the project, especially with ‘The Garden Wheel’ where it could’ve been opened up slightly in its melody.
The polish of the melodies and production allows the emotional scope of the project to hit even harder, where the emotional weight is now carried with that bombast implemented within the album. It’s essentially surrounding the demise of a long-distance relationship that Samuel T. Herring has been in for a few years now, where he goes deep in reflection about the moments of the relationship that are parting away slowly and achingly. Yet it does go beyond that, as tracks ‘Give Me The Ghost’ and ‘Corner of My Eye’ describe feeling a sense of grief towards the friends that he has lost in his life, and it provides a lot more emotional punch toward thinking about the relationship that he has lost amidst the process of moving on and recovering from that loss. It is a familiar territory once again in terms of thematic focus, but the added detail of friends passing away and breaking apart brings a lot more ache, especially when people just keep on getting older. And what does allow this to still become strong is Samuel Herring's writing itself, where the grasp of emotional detail and descriptive flair is on a different league overall, and showcases his improvement as a writer over the years of portraying scenes of heartbreak.
After landing consistently decent to good but not spectacular projects in their overall catalog, they managed to land an exquisite project with ‘People Who Aren’t There Anymore’, with the usual thematic and sonic blueprints now infused with more saturations and dynamics. Reflecting upon broken relationships and passed-on friendships that ingrain a lot of emotional stakes are brought even deeper by the uptick in tempos and melodic soars allowing the message to carry more ache as they try to recover past those morose moments. Even with the sense of loss brought by distance, death, and conflicts, people will continue to cling to those moments as a means to cherish what stuck with them in the past. This experience Future Islands has felt time and time again may still hurt for them, but it’s not going to stop them from living and finding love once again.
Favorite Tracks: ‘King of Sweden’, ‘The Tower’, ‘Deep In The Night’, ‘Say Goodbye’,
‘Give Me The Ghost Back’, ‘Corner of My Eye’, ‘Iris’, ‘Peach’
Least Favorite Track: ‘The Garden Wheel’