Future Islands – People Who Aren’t There Anymore: Another outing for the condemned pop outfit

Future Islands are inextricably linked to a moment in time. Their performance on David Letterman’s show in 2014 simultaneously bared all and announced their represso-pop to the world. Abstract but direct lyrics, crooned and growled over the New Order playbook; what’s not to love?

Ten years on, and it feels like Future Islands have taken the blueprint to heart, and to the studio. The Baltimore band have honed their sound to aesthetic perfection, but also to a degree of predictability. As the band fires up their latest offering People Who Aren’t There Anymore with ‘King of Sweden’, a cast of something familiar comes over the similar.

However, if the post-punk disco is your home, Future Islands’ new album will be a sonic delight. Early cuttings in the spatial ‘Deep In The Night’ and the charging ‘Give Me the Ghost Back’ show the band’s range, with Samuel T. Herring’s mercurial and deliberate voice taking centre stage. Like Manchester’s The Slow Readers Club, doomed vocals layer over a galvanised instrumental, each balancing out the other.

Future Islands, in 2024, also now find themselves in a musical environment crowded by speak-singing. From the domestically heart-breaking musings of Black Country, New Road to the metaphorical social commentary of Yard Act, all the cool bands choose sprechgesang. Where does this leave Future Islands now it’s in vogue for everyone to do it?

The lyrics of the album are characterised by Herring’s breakup with Julia Ragnarsson, but this does not make them derivative from Future Islands’ previous work. Herring’s words feel like raw sentences that may be deep in a journal, painfully aware of his reality and burdened with articulating himself. If Sisyphus was in a synth-pop band, this would be what it would sound like.

“If I’ve said too much please let me know / it’s not the first time that I’ve been told” is subdued over the utopian synth-pop of ‘The Thief’. Escaping, but not quite. Saying what can only be said in song. All the things that Future Islands’ do so well are all on showcase. If you let Herring take you away on this album, there’s much insight and much to learn. The texture in his voice that stupefied when Future Islands announced themselves now feels comforting, like checking in on an old friend.

It may not be at the cutting edge, but People Who Aren’t There Anymore feels sustainable. For a frontman that performed on a torn ACL for several months, and a band that has performed thousands of shows, Future Islands have grafted. They now have the privilege to not tour this album immediately, to write and rehearse remotely, to pursue other projects; and when they do come back together, there is a competent album to keep fans engaged.

Condemned pop will never go out of fashion – there is a great comfort in basking in doom. Future Islands is realist music for our times. They’re still among the best in the business to do it, even if they do trade in any possibility of surprises and spontaneity.