Review: Islands' A Sleep & A Forgetting

Islands

A Sleep & A Forgetting

Anti

Forget the mini-epics and catchy pop songs this time around. On the fourth Islands album, Nick Thorburn is a-hurtin?.

A Sleep & a Forgetting is a product of the end of a relationship, as Thorburn has acknowledged in a statement accompanying the release. It?s a breakup album filled with recurring themes of loss, distance, regret and emotional numbness. ?The ease with which I sleep tends to frighten me,? Thorburn sings in the disc?s final moments, at the end of Same Thing.

Somehow, though, it all goes down easy, thanks to a surprising sweetness in the music. Recorded in less than two weeks, these 11 tracks have a first-take freshness and a stripped-down cleanliness that adds a hopeful counterpoint to bleak sentiments like ?If Penny rolls away, I will have lost everything in many subtle ways,? from the delicate and soulful This Is Not a Song, in which Thorburn also identifies himself by name.

At times, the disc ? clocking in at a highly manageable 37 minutes ? feels like a whisper of an album, a resigned sigh from someone who is beginning to believe that the worst is behind him.

No Crying, with its crisp sound and a chord progression that sounds like a throwback to the 1950s (in a Jonathan Richman kind of way), is a fine example. The singer, once again disturbed by his inability to tap into his emotions, finally allows healing tears to come as the song ends.

Oh Maria is built on a recurring nightmare experienced by Buddy Holly?s widow, who dreamed of being at the site of the plane crash that claimed her husband?s life. It?s a grim, haunting evocation of loss partly sung in a melodic, gentle falsetto.

The group does manage to pick up the pace at times. The insistent piano pounding that introduces and anchors Never Go Solo comes close to sounding like Queen on a day off, while Hallways, with its backbeat, handclaps and harmonies, is catchy, uptempo pop. And the garage-band-at-the-circus riff-rocker Can?t Feel My Face, in spite of the despair in its sentiments, will have you bobbing your head, at the very least.

In the end, though, this is a musically unassuming, almost self-effacing transitional effort. Listenable as it may be, most of its tracks evaporate quickly and leave little impression. The most memorable is Lonely Love, a softly strummed, almost country-flavoured ballad that cleverly alludes to Paul Simon?s Crazy Love Vol. II.

Thorburn has described this album as his interpretation of soul music. If heartbreak is the stock in trade of the genre, he might have something there. But as for the kind of staying power we expect from real soul, the future hasn?t completely brightened.

Rating: 3 out of five stars

Podworthy: Lonely Love

Islands perform Feb. 27 at 8 p.m. at Cabaret du Mile End, 5240 Parc Ave., with Idiot Glee. Tickets cost $13 in advance at blueskiesturnblack.com or $15 at the door.

bperusse@montrealgazette.com

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Source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Review+Islands+Sleep+Forgetting/6145921/story.html

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