Reviews

Islands

Return To The Sea

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Review Date: 2006-06-01

Did you ever play that game where you’d put your finger on a spinning globe, and wherever your finger was when the globe came to rest would be the place you’d get married, have children, die, and so on? I admit, I spent many kindergarten mornings this way. And not only was the globe game educational, teaching me about dusty former Soviet republics and obscure African rivers, but it also imparted some important life lessons. One, for some unknown reason, mysterious death awaits me in the dense jungles of Burma. And two, given the earth’s sheer magnitude of oceans, seas, bays and straits, after a few spins it struck me that this was perhaps not the best way to orchestrate a feasible plan for my future.

Yet something tells me that this could conceivably be the method behind the madness of Return to the Sea, the debut album from Montreal’s Islands. After all, the fabricators of the eleven sonically and lyrically ambitious tracks therein are noted oddballs Nick Diamonds and J’aime Tambeur – formerly two-thirds of the quirky, hyper-ironic indie rock outfit Unicorns. It’s not hard to picture Diamonds and Tambeur (stage names, both) letting their globe’s whirling latitude lines haphazardly dictate the disc’s material: there are songs here about Alaskan volcanoes and African diamond mines, melodies infused with Caribbean calypso beats and Appalachian folk shuffles. And, it should be mentioned, lots and lots of water.

Much has been written about Unicorns’ scorn for traditional verse-chorus-verse structures, especially on their well-received yet wildly erratic 2003 release Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?. So it’s a testament to Diamonds and Tambeur’s songwriting abilities that first single “Rough Gem,” despite lacking what would be considered a traditional chorus, is so immediately radio-friendly. The pair string along ominous proclamations like “You mined what you died for” and “Dig deep, but don’t dig too deep” with an ingratiating organ and bass clarinet riff for the song’s first two minutes, before segueing into a swooning coda layered with guitar, violins and stuttering drumbeats. With Diamonds’ reedy vocals and the song’s nascent geo-political awareness, “Rough Gem” could be a Paul Simon song, both lyrically and musically – in fact, both Tambeur and Diamonds have been on record as saying parts of Return to the Sea were inspired by Simon’s Graceland. (Though given the pair’s passion for straight-faced irony, take that statement with as much salt as you feel necessary.)

Like “Rough Gem,” many tracks on Return to the Sea balance charming pop melodies with lyrics that hint at menace. “If,” for instance, is a quaint, lazy little tune – a mix of piano and shuffling high-hat in which Diamonds punningly threatens, “If you’re not sweet to me / I’ll desert you in a heartbeat.” That same disconnect exists on the summery “Don’t Call me Whitney, Bobby” – the jokey title and breezy guitar strumming suggest whimsicality, but the song’s images of anorexic bodies and “bones, brittle little bones” conjure up all the unsavoury moments of the title pair’s relationship (like that picture of Whitney’s bathroom-slash-personal crack den that made its way across the tabloids earlier this year). On the other hand, the calypso-infused “Jogging Gorgeous Summer” is truly as carefree as its name would suggest, peppered with couplets like “Millions of sunsets but the one I’ll remember / Is the one where you told me you loved me forever.” Awwww.

But given the puns, the quirky titles, and the musical genres that attract relatively few indie boys from Montreal (besides the tropicalia of “Jogging Gorgeous Summer,” there’s also the unexpected rap breakdown in the snarling “Where There’s a Will, There’s a Whalebone,” courtesy of rappers Cadence Weapon, Despot and Bus Driver), it’s fair to ask how much of Return to the Sea is intended to be taken ironically. Perhaps because of the arrival of guitarist Jim Guthrie (who’s currently getting an unexpected boost of fame for his ditty “Hands in my Pocket” which, thanks to Capital One’s ad campaign, is all over Canadian television right now), but Tambeur and Diamonds seem to be moving away from the self-aware archness they displayed when they played together as Unicorns. Guthrie’s influenced is slathered across a number of Return to the Sea’s more affecting tracks, including “Rough Gem,” nine-minute opener “Swans (Life After Death),” and the timpani-laced “Ones.” But ultimately, it’s Tambeur and Diamonds’ crazy carnival show, and if they want to indulge in the occasional country-and-western noodling (“Volcanoes”), then they’ll plant their tongues in the cheeks and pick up the fiddles. Get past the knee-deep irony, though, and you’ve got an album more mature, more consistent, and ultimately more satisfying than anything the now-extinct Unicorns ever released.

-Trevor Pritchard

Five tracks to hear: “Swans (Life after Death),” “Rough Gem,” “Where There’s a Will, There’s a Whalebone,” “Volcanoes,” “Ones”

Score: 7.9

Update: Islands’ website is reporting that, as of May 28, J’aime Tambeur has decided to leave the band. As Unicorns were famed for their constant lineup changes, we’ll have to see just how long Tambeur will remain a musical free agent.

- Trevor Pritchard