Islands
What Occurs
ELF
Following the release of last August’s And That’s Why Dolphins Lost Their Legs, indie-rock darlings Islands return with their tenth album, What Occurs. The spry and rangy release sees the band returning to their Canadian-rich roots and marks their first entirely Canadian-made release since their 2006 debut, Return to the Sea. In his own words, frontman Nick Thorburn wanted to tap into the energy of his “Canadian forebears” while recording in his home province of British Columbia. Some subtle musical touchstones for What Occurs include Destroyer, Rufus Wainwright, Teenage Head, as well as, naturally, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and Leonard Cohen.
Thorburn’s signature inclination for using oddball protagonists in his songs—carrying over from his time with The Unicorns—continues with What Occurs. The album is spattered with moments of dark folk reflection, rock-pop swagger, and dream-pop pops of color. The musical background showcases an art thief nearly getting away with his obsession (“David Geffen’s Jackson Pollock”), a girl who lets you down easy (“Sally Doesn’t Work Here Anymore”), and doom-scrollers bracing for armageddon (“What Occurs” and “On the Internet”). There’s even a scaredy-cat fool who gets downright confused about his terminology (“Arachnophobia”).
Most of the tracks here are fairly unassuming overall and stripped back from the manic genre-atomizing orchestrations heard on the early Islands records. The album opener and title track cruises along with a steady piano beat before unexpectedly dropping in a mandolin solo. Elsewhere, “Drown a Fish,” “Talk Is Cheap,” and “Move Some More” sit in that slicked-down ’70s-’80s pop-rock heard throughout this album’s 2023 predecessor in addition to 2021’s Islomania and the band’s 2016 double dip, Should I Remain Here at Sea? and Taste.
What Occurs is a matter-of-fact release, both beguiling and workman-like in its daydreaming studio ethic. Islands still manage to charm in fits and starts after nearly two decades, as Thorburn’s voice can still stretch and fold in on itself like Silly Putty. He continues to have fun with each new summery indie-rock melody with his longtime band.
