Islands Taste

Very rarely do bands release two albums on the same day. Guns N’ Roses famously did it with Use Your Illusion I and II in 1991, though those could just as easily have been packaged as one massive double album. Bright Eyes pulled off a more successful creative partition in 2005 with the folk-rocking I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning and the electro-popping Digital Ash In A Digital Urn. And now Islands will attempt a similar feat, releasing sixth LP Taste and seventh LP Should I Remain Here At Sea? on the same day this coming May. Today they share each album’s lead single along with some comments from Islands leader Nick Thorburn, he of Unicorns and Serial fame.

“Charm Offensive,” from the similarly disenchanted but electronically inclined Taste. It’s one of the best songs in Islands’ catalog, one that manages to be quirky and sleek all at once. Explains Thorburn:

“Charm Offensive” is all sharp angles, smooth lines and mechanical melodies, but just underneath is a desire for the round edges, the soft corners, a loose swing and some crude revelry. I was trying to express that urge to find the good times, and let the bad ones go. To stop using songwriting as a pool to wallow in. To find the light, to sneak in, “pull back the shades, see the darkness fade.”