Music
Review: Future Islands Open Up New Romantic Heart on ‘The Far Field’
Our take on the fifth album from the Baltimore synth-pop crew
On the fifth album from Baltimore’s Future Islands,
frontman Samuel T. Herring continues to put a begging, pleading soulman spin on
the moony affliction of the Cure and New Order – slathering his gangly
sandpaper croon all over songs like the dance-pop gallop “Ran.” The
results are comically over-the-top but still warmly moving; he’s the kind of
guy who can make the line “we were the candles that lit up the snow on
dusty roads” seem poignant. Debbie Harry of Blondie swings by to help moan
the tenderly gloomy “Shadows,” and the whole thing nicely evokes a
rainy Eighties afternoon awash in heartache and MTV.