This should be a victory lap for Islands. After all, their uniformly excellent debut resuscitated Paul Simon's as an indie pop touchstone back when Vampire Weekend were still playing in the quad. And with that album's bouncy calypso rhythms and hip-hop bursts, Jaime Thompson and Nick Thorburn (previously known by their J'aime Tambeur and Nick Diamonds), succeeded in laying to rest the ghost of their beloved former group, the Unicorns. Since then, they have honed their breezy, buoyant sound on the road, and, despite Thompson's departure from the lineup, the Montreal-based sextet seemed on the verge of a major breakthrough, as demonstrated by moving from tiny indie label Equator to Anti-, home of such classy "career" acts as Nick Cave and Billy Bragg. But , which does away with the musical levity and genre experimentations of , is much darker and more conventional than its predecessor, and not, unfortunately, to its benefit.