Samuel T. Herring, lyricist and lion-throated singer of Baltimore synth-romantics Future Islands, has written a lot of break-up songs. He penned some pretty vitriolic ones on the band's 2008 debut, Wave Like Home, and then he wrote an entire record's worth on their terrific 2010 release, In Evening Air. About four songs into their latest-- which contains such boldfaced melodrama as "I loved you and I still do"-- you get the idea that this guy might be something of a Sisyphus, relieved at last of the whole boulder-up-the-hill business but doomed to sit on the receiving end of an "It's not you, it's me" conversation ad infinitum.
Future Islands initially came out of Baltimore's Wham City scene; their first, rather unexceptional record was built from electro-punk and day-glo squiggles. Over the past few years, though, they've become more aesthetically disciplined. The thing that made In Evening Air such a bruiser was how seriously it took its job as a break-up album: Its gaze was singularly affixed on hurt. Herring's lyrics were simplistic and conversational, yet pointed: "You couldn't possibly know how much you meant to me," "You hurt me so bad," etc. Amidst a steady, drum-machine heartbeat and uncommonly sentient-sounding synths, he repeated these lines-- the banal poetry of relationship-speak-- until they started to sound downright sinister. His refrain on "Long Flight" builds from a quietly mounting frenzy into, by song's end, a full blown, grown-man temper tantrum. Listening to the part when he finally breaks evokes the skin-prickling claustrophobia of watching a mild-mannered airplane seatmate start to freak out 30,000 feet above an exit route.
Their third and latest LP, On the Water, is more invested in wide-open spaces. The opening (and title) track gives all the elements of the band's sound more leg room: Herring's unhurried vocals, epic, smoldering synths, and the steady churn of a not-too-choppy tide on a sample that begins the song. Recorded in a friend's house in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, overlooking the Pasquotank River, On the Water draws from the imagery and movement of the sea. It's less intent on bringing the drama or the fury than In Evening Air was, but its reflections on aging and memory accumulate into something surprisingly moving.
With the songs' energy scaled back, the efforts of the other two band members come to the fore. Gerrit Welmers handles the keyboards and programming, bringing an evocative, setting-sun vibe to slowburners like "The Great Fire" (a soulful duet with Jenn Wasner of fellow Marylanders Wye Oak), while William Cashion's guitars have the same low-end lurch of early-New Order riffs. Though treading familiar sonic and thematic waters at the start, On the Water really comes alive midway through, beginning with the mournful "Where I Found You" and building to "Close to None", the record's most buoyant track.
Though some of Herring's more temperate moments make me miss his snarling freakouts of yore, one of On the Water's most striking moments is decidedly minimal: "Tybee Island" pairs the sound of crashing waves with a warm synth tone, both of which overpower the presence of their frontman. For most people, Herring's hyper-theatrical vocals are the make-or-break point of Future Islands: He sings every line like Meat Loaf serenading Yorick's skull. It's an acquired taste for sure, one that's much easier to be unequivocally swept up in when you're watching him on stage (doing grand hand gestures, grinning like a maniac, and occasionally slapping himself across the face), but even on the record, Herring's signature affect communicates something about the operatic sadness of life's everyday banalities. "Tybee Island" finds him, for once, barely audible. It's a powerful moment to hear a voice usually so big made to sound-- in contrast with the natural world-- so human and small. It's the polar opposite of the tension-building repetitions of In Evening Air: With each utterance of this coda, he seems more and more to loosen his grip on the past.
