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Written by Pete Timmermann Wednesday, 25 June 2008 09:58

"In the Rushes" has a fun time messing with The Who's "A Quick One While He's Away," which is appreciated, though not altogether necessary.

I'm not sure if you should trust me to write this review. Being a huge fan of The Unicorns' Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?, I was quick to grab and review Islands' first album, Return to the Sea, when it came out back in '06, on account of it being the new band made up of a couple of now-broken up Unicorns. My review was positive, but somewhat reluctantly (a quote from my review of Return to the Sea: "...it is actually almost as good as Cut Our Hair (unless that's me enamored to be listening to [lead singer Nick Thorburn] sing again.") In the two years since I've written that review, I've decided that I don't really like Return to the Sea at all, and remain to this day pretty severely disappointed with it (I still love the Unicorns' original stuff). So will I be blinded by my old love of Nick Thorburn's voice or my more recent burning by not being able to see past it?

The answer is neither, or both. Ultimately, I've found the new Islands release, Arm's Way, to be sort of boring; it's functional as inoffensive background noise, but it's hard to imagine me seeking it out specifically much if at all once I get done writing this review and no longer have a journalistic obligation to listen to it. There are a couple of good tracks here (both of which Islands' new label, Anti-, is smart enough to be releasing as singles), those being the opener, "The Arm," and the poppy and fun-in-a-stupid-way "Creeper." Also, in the album's second half, "In the Rushes" has a fun time messing with The Who's "A Quick One While He's Away," which is appreciated, though not altogether necessary.

The biggest problem here is that the album's just too long. Clocking in at just under 70 minutes, it would have benefited both the band and the listener if they had weeded out the weaker tracks and made the damn thing closer to 45 minutes. A good example of this is the final track, "Vertigo (If It's a Crime)," which, according to the press notes, the band refers to as "a gothic symphony in three acts." The third act is okay, but the first two are superfluous and dilute the power the song could have had. Who wants a mediocre upbeat pop album to go on endlessly, especially when the lead singer's voice is as distinct and childlike as Thorburn's? The problem with "Vertigo" is the problem with the album, and it turns out that, much as I like it, I only like Thorburn's style in small doses. C | Pete Timmermann