Islands - Taste/Should I Remain Here at Sea?

Pitchfork 74

Nick Thorburn’s music has been downloaded more than 80 million times in the past two years, but a majority of those people will likely always associate his work with a girl who can’t pronounce the phrase “MailChimp.” In a perfect world, the two albums his band Islands have simultaneously released would change that.

Taste and Should I Remain Here at Sea? are Islands’ first releases since 2013. In the intervening years, Thorburn busied himself by composing for the podcast, Serial, including the tinny minor-chord piano theme that starts each episode. That his band has released these somewhat-different albums on the same day should come as no surprise to those familiar with Thorburn’s output. After coming to prominence as a leading force in the Unicorns, a band that arguably helped lift indie rock out of a self-serious rut in 2003, he formed Islands, as well as several other projects that blur the line between serious and silly, including Mister Heavenly, Th’ Corn Gangg, Reefer, and Human Highway. To say nothing of his solo work that he releases as Nick Diamonds. Basically, he is a compulsive music maker, and his foray into soundtracking the most popular podcast ever made him antsy to get back to Islands.

It also seems to have focused him. Taste is a largely electronic affair, while Should I Remain Here at Sea? is more guitar-based. But it’s not their instrumentation that gives these albums their distinct personalities. The recording notes show that the band switched between working on Taste and Should I Remain... for bursts, completing both within a few months of each other. The resulting two albums seem to offer two ways of dealing with personal devastation: for the first few days you try to make sense of it all while talking to those who are close to you. The wounds are still fresh and you can only speak of it with an air of gravitas. A few days later and you’re able to gain some perspective on the event and perhaps even make light of it. Taste is the bitter sharp-witted album immediately dealing with the fallout. Should I Remain… is lighter, looser and more concise, in the same way that you refine your story once you’ve tried telling it a few times.

There’s a heavy theme of a fracturing relationship on both albums, as well as unlikely recurrences of fierce gripes about American cops and benign complaints about California weather. These releases are also united in their robust choruses, which could get stadiums to sing along if Thorburn dumbed it down and wrote more formulaically. But that’s not in his nature: He’s not aggressively courting those millions of Serial listeners. Thorburn’s greatest skill is creating subliminal hooks that will stay with you even if you didn’t notice them at first. A lyrical line will swim around in your head until it offers an unexpected truth, like the advice he offers about dealing with personal tragedies soberly: “Turn to face it, resist the narcotic embrace,” he sings in Taste’s lead single, “Charm Offensive.” It’s the type of line that will come floating to the front of consciousness when you’re thinking about throwing up your hands and giving into your worst impulses.

While Islands have gotten progressively more serious with each release, the band do still know how to keep proceedings from getting too staid. A tap dance solo highlights “Stop Me Now” on Should I Remain…, the whistle line from “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” finds its way into “The Joke,” and one of the most exquisite songs in the collection is given the irreverent title of “Outspoken Dirtbiker.” As far as absurd titles go, it’s no “Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby,” but it does showcase Thorburn’s ability to keep his sense of humor when dealing with weighty issues.

The band is in top form here. On both albums, Thorburn shares producer credit with bassist Evan Gordon, who is also responsible for the programming. The uneasy beats on Taste are part of what give that album its kick. Guitarist Geordie Gordon and drummer Adam Halferty also make both albums richer by providing dense textures and strong background vocals. Should I Remain Here at Sea? has the feel of friends blowing off steam the only way they know how, after working so hard on something outside of their comfort zone. The process of the band working through Taste together has united them in this shared experience, and they rock out accordingly on “Back Into It,” the track that opens Should I Remain…

This relationship between records makes Islands’ induction to the Two-Separate-Releases-at-the-Same-Time Club a different proposition than more famous double offerings from Guns N’ Roses, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Westerberg, and Bright Eyes. Of course, when all of those acts did it, we weren’t living in the streaming society we are now, and I’d be writing this review to tell you which one of these is more worth your money. For the most part, it’s now just a matter of which one is worth your time, and they both are. These albums may be decidedly separate, but they’re only complete when experienced together.