Most Wanted: The Islands

One of my favorite albums in the last few years was Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? by the Unicorns. I’m not going to get into a whole description of why, but it was just a refreshing joy to listen to – a smart, complicated, messy, gleeful, joy. The Unicorns followed up with a disappointing EP. Then they broke up. It was like someone turned the volume, brightness, and contrast of the world down a single notch and a small but significant legion of aesthetes were reasonably and inconsolably bummed to wake up and discover the shabbiness of a slightly dimmer, grimmer world.

Since then, two of the three dudes from the band, Nick Diamonds and Jamie Thompson, joined up to form a new band called the Islands, which also includes members of the Arcade Fire. Tracks reportedly from April’s upcoming CD, Return to the Sea, have been leaking for months, and the first two I came by "Abominable Snow" and "Flesh" were promising but still disappointing and I wasn’t sure how excited I should be for the Islands' new disc. It turns out that "Abominable Snow" and "Flesh" aren’t on the new disc at all – phew! And new, more promising tracks have leaked. After one listen to the stunning, surprising "Rough Gem," I was – to borrow a phrase – coming in my pants, and when I looked around the world was full of wonder again: bright – brighter than ever. I tell you, folks: this disc has vaulted to the uppermost echelon on my list of anticipated things.

What to say about "Rough Gem": When I hear this song, I am happy.

It starts calmly enough with somber strings, but quickly gets kooky and when the high-energy main riff starts – I think it’s synthesizer and some kind of flute – I’m just in a heaven of stimulation. There's an underlying sadness to the song as well, and I can’t wait for the full album’s release in April.

More about the band and full track list of Return to the Sea here. You can find all the tracks mentioned above as well as others with some search engine ingenuity and persistence, but a good place to start is this .mp3 aggregator, Elbo.