Future Islands explore emotions on Singles

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      As far as talk-show performances go, you’ll be hard-pressed to find one as beguiling and intense as Future Islands’ run-through of “Seasons (Waiting on You)” on The Late Show With David Letterman. The early-March appearance started normally enough, with the Baltimore combo unfurling soft-focus analogue synths, U2 bass shimmer, and a gently driving four-on-the-floor beat. Vocalist Samuel Herring himself seemed at ease as he wistfully began to sing about love and the winds of change, but he became a man possessed by song’s end.

      His jaw-dropping physical feats included swivelling his hips as if melting in the sun and slapping his chest with an apelike ferocity that reverberated deep into the mike. Swapping his prim delivery for something more beastly, the frontman later let out a black-bear growl more befitting a death-metal tune than the new-wave direction the rest of the band offered up. Lunging at the camera with an arm outstretched and soul-baring eyes ablaze, he cried desperately about craving “what has all gone away” before closing out the song calmly.

      The captivating on-screen moment floored the host (“I’ll take all of that you’ve got”), has since racked up over 665,000 views on YouTube, and has brought heaps of attention to the group’s just-released fourth LP, Singles. While thankful for the buzz, Future Islands—Herring, bassist William Cashion, and multi-instrumentalist Gerrit Welmers—is surprised by the public’s reaction, because the histrionics were just business as usual.

      “That’s what we do every night on the road, no matter where we’re playing, performing with that same kind of passion and sincerity,” Herring explains humbly, holed up in a hotel before taking off for a Wisconsin tour stop. “We try to connect directly with people through that style. I guess people don’t see that as much. There are a lot of bands that have put out that kind of spirit in their performance, but you don’t always get to see them on national TV.”

      “We didn’t expect the performance to have that kind of reaction,” Cashion adds. “Even if people hate it it’s still cool that they’re seeing it, that they’re getting something from it.”

      If Future Islands got anything out of making the 10-song Singles, it was peace of mind. Before beginning work on the record in early 2013, the band had been in a steady write-record-and-tour period and had clocked over 150 shows a year for five years running. Burnt-out after the tour cycle behind Future Islands’ third LP, 2011’s On the Water, and having ended a romantic relationship shortly after getting home, Herring suggested the act take its sweet time on the next outing.

      “It was a matter of getting off the road and healing a bit from that kind of heavy cycle,” he says. “That’ll get to you. You miss home, you miss your loved ones sometimes. Sometimes you’re just mentally and physically exhausted from the grind, and you need a break.”

      Following a brief sabbatical from band duties, the crew headed to its home state of North Carolina to start songwriting sessions. The familiar locale inspired the nostalgic creekside and crop-field settings sung about on the record’s “Back in the Tall Grass” and “A Song for Our Grandfathers”. The experience helped clear the band members’ minds before they continued work on the album in Baltimore and New York.

      Herring adds of the productive period in North Carolina, “I think the most important thing that it afforded us was the isolation from our regular lives, or even our tour lives: to have a writers’ retreat, to have a place where we would wake up and all of our gear was set up and we could just start plinking around and explore ideas.”

      “Seasons (Waiting on You)” sets the tone of the album with its lean, soft-rocking arrangement and contemplative lines. Herring explains that the song is about accepting the fate of a failing relationship, and the ebb and flow of what was felt in the aftermath.

      “The big part of it is realizing that you have to move on,” he says of getting past heartbreak. “You can’t wait for that person anymore. You’re not going to find this contentment because you’re always going to be fighting for this thing that you can’t quite get. In truth, trying to change someone else is a ridiculous thing that you shouldn’t do.”

      Elsewhere, Singles slingshots through a spectrum of emotion. While the luminescent synth washes on “Sun in the Morning” help Herring soak in the positive vibes of a certain someone, the adult-contemporary funkiness of “Doves” has the singer burning up in agony. He’s at his worst on the dream-pop ballad “Fall From Grace”, where atop crestfallen fuzz bass and faux vibraphone sounds the vocalist works his way from a stodgy English teacher’s accent into feral shrieks as he reflects on a bitter personal fallout.

      Like the growl-heavy live performance of “Seasons”, these unsettling screams are helping Future Islands find new fans. Heavy-metal label Relapse Records, for instance, tweeted a suggestion to Herring to start up an extreme-metal project and hung out with the band at SXSW. While the vocalist admits that he and Welmers banged their heads back in the day to the blast-beat-intensive sound of onetime signees Mortician, he isn’t reconsidering his career path just yet.

      “There’s nothing better to wake up to when you’re tired and on your way to school than Mortician, which is just 250 bpm of cymbal-smashing music with horror-movie samples,” he reminisces fondly. “There is a part of that in us, but I’m definitely not going the metal route.”

      Future Islands plays a sold-out show at the Rickshaw Theatre on Friday (April 4).

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