Islands
“Where There’s a Will There’s a Whalebone” from Return to the Sea

I remember reading a review of Mercury Rev’s first album that described it as a half-assed masterpiece. It was a brilliant description that totally nailed the album in three short words. Flashes of utter brilliance juxtaposed against an interesting sense of laziness and wandering.

I wouldn’t use the exact same metaphor to describe the Islands debut album but it’s not far off the mark. The album starts off with the ambitious track “Swans (Life After Death)” which is a sort of trippy stoned romp along the lines of Mercury Rev’s early work. It’s my favorite track on the album. The only reason it’s not the Single of the Week is it’s length at over nine minutes.

“Where There’s a Will There’s a Whalebone” is a catchier and more digestible slice of Return to the Sea even if it does stick out a little bit, what with the rapping. It starts off with mellow spacey vocals and instrumentation then out of nowhere they drop in some guest rappers. It works a lot better than it sounds.

The rest of the album owes a lot to the Beatles, sometimes to the Islands credit and other times not so much. Regardless, I can’t stop playing it and that’s as a good a recommendation as any.

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