Future Islands Shine Again on People Who Aren’t There Anymore

We know how it all goes by now. Future Islands, led by their mystical, animated frontman Samuel T. Herring, blew up (in an indie sense) after making their network television debut on Letterman with a performance of “Seasons (Waiting On You)” way back in 2014. In merely four minutes, the world finally knew about Herring and his crew. And that growl, those dance moves, that groove—a switch flipped in an instant. And likewise, the album that “Seasons (Waiting On You)” came from, Singles, immediately became one of the most important synth-pop projects of this millennium. Up until that point, Future Islands—comprising of Herring, Gerrit Welmers, William Cashion and Michael Lowry—were still a niche outfit from Baltimore. They’d not yet made waves on the festival circuit, nor had they signed with 4AD and been given the keys to whatever platform they could dream of.

Last year, I put together a list of the 50 greatest synth-pop albums of all time. Now, doing such a task is not for the faint of heart. The sub-genre has been around for so long that it’s its own category now. Thousands of bands and artists have tried making it, many of whom wind up falling into the same lane as damn near everyone else. But Future Islands made the list, clocking in at #48 with Singles. And I stand by that, as it’s just one of those albums that boasts the kind of accessible arrangement that is, all at once, melodramatic and cute and full of desire. I mean, Pitchfork named “Singles (Waiting On You)” their #1 song of 2014. In a year ruled by Taylor Swift’s 1989, FKA Twigs’ LP1, Sturgill Simpson’s Metamodern Sounds in Country Music and D’Angelo’s Black Messiah, it was a taut, emotional and sweeping synth-pop hit that outlasted them all.

Now, Future Islands are the type of band that can come and go as they please. They’ve punched their ticket to festival stages for the rest of time, and they’ve got a support system of some 2 million listeners on Spotify at this point. To me, they are The National of synth-pop acts, and what I mean by that is they are a band so steadfast in and synced-up with their own strengths that there is little-to-no reason to shake things up at this point. Of course, there are small subtleties that glitter in as much technicolor as the tried-and-true stuff does. But, the last two Future Islands albums—The Far Field and As Long as You Are—were good but didn’t quite move the needle how fans might have wanted. Aside from “Shadows,” their duet with the incomparable Debbie Harry, Future Islands have been without a major, undeniable release in 10 years.

But now, People Who Aren’t There Anymore arrives ready to remedy the band’s static, going-through-the-motions decade of performing. This is the type of album that solidifies Future Islands as a band of renaissance men who can make a sublime and meticulous genre like synth-pop feel grandiose and loose. It doesn’t quite capture the intensity of Singles, but you’d be wrong to assume it could or should. That record was the game-changer for Future Islands, a major indie label debut that gave the band the weapons they needed to make their best record. People Who Aren’t There Anymore, however, is the best-sounding Future Islands album yet, and it features some of their most bulletproof songwriting yet.

“King of Sweden” is a psychedelic opener, defined by its woozy synthesizer that, at times, swells louder than Herring’s own vocals. It’s a love song driven by language like “cursive quiet,” “lights trailed like incense,” “slept dry in tents,” “a sweet, unsweetened” and “an eve uneven.” The cadence of Herring’s poetry sounds good rolling off his tongue, and it sounds even better trickling through your ear. “You are all I need, nothing said could change a thing,” he muses. “Where you go, I go. Just say I’ll be, ‘cause you are all I need.” “King of Sweden” paves the way for “The Tower,” the best Future Island song in 10 years. It’s anthemic, cutting and worthy of fist pumps and listless feet. Driven by Lowry’s drum-machine percussion and smart use of a snare and kick-drum couplet, it pairs with Cashion’s bass groove effortlessly. “The Tower” also vaunts orphic, emotive synth programming by Welmers, who understands just how to animate a keyboard palette to compliment Herring’s bravado to blazing transcendence.

People Who Aren’t There Anymore is an extensive portrait of an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. But even then, Future Islands are still finding new ways to polish a diamond on this album. “Deep In the Night” is massively indebted to a prom night slow-dance type of beat, as Herring measures himself up against the greatest dancefloor crooners of yesteryear. The song aches and inches across a featherlight and affecting arrangement that is fine-tuned and emotionally dense yet practically refreshing. The fact that the band labored over this album and wrote, recorded and reimagined it multiple times over the last four years is all the more surprising. Future Islands make it all look easy.

“Say Goodbye” arches itself back into a kind of musical enthusiasm that the quartet are no strangers to. The song races and flutters and glows with arena rock details beneath an indie pop formula. “Give Me the Ghost Back” finds Herring doing a subtle Alex Turner impression at the jump, only to find the whole machine of the song diving into this bombastic, elaborate punch of pop grandeur as he reflects on peers, friends and strangers becoming ghosts (“Terror is a long dark night, half awake with the ones who died, the ones who tried to say ‘goodbye’ to that cold white light”). People Who Aren’t There Anymore does recycle Future Islands’ trusted sonic motifs—racing synth notes packed with electric guitar that never outmuscles the melody it’s working to elevate—but the album never flirts with over-saturation. There is a duality on the record, too. On “The Sickness,” Herring laments a fractured romance and blames it on everybody else but himself and his partner; on “Corner of My Eye,” he’s softened up, reveling in the brutal truth: It’s over and it’s up to him to keep going.

Less uptempo than the momentous “The Tower,” “The Fight” is no doubt a companion to the paean centerpiece and just as great. The track finds Herring standing alone and belting to the heavens. He sheds the larger-than-life energy he normally harnesses without skipping a beat, embracing the type of balladeering delivery by getting introspective and delicate, as Welmers’ synths speckle like teardrops and the undercurrent of throbbing bass from Cashion and Lowry’s spaced-out percussion rumble beneath Herring’s shepherding toward a thoughtful, reflective finale. “Now I’m back on my own, another winter in shadow,” he croons. “Can I do it alone? Now I’m back in my cell, back with myself, waiting on the phone.” “Peach,” which was released as a single way back in 2021, was the first example of where Future Islands were primed to move next and here, it fits nicely on the back half of People Who Aren’t There Anymore by existing somewhere between Japanese ambient, city pop and the neon of TRON, romantically paralleling the era of 40 years ago with a sticky-sweet sonic consistency that shows off Herring’s abilities as not just as a songwriter, but as a vocalist, too.

Album closer “The Garden Wheel” finds Herring reflecting on the People Who Aren’t There Anymore title, coming to terms with how we are no longer the same people we were 20 years ago and that, eventually, the folks in our lives move on without us. But we still have the world around us, we still have love. “At peace, in the place where we slept,” Herring sings. “Without anger, without language, lately.” Future Islands are just another band made up of members nearing 40, but the mortality they express doubts about is still as rich, intimate and familiar as it was when Herring belted out “And I’ve tried hard just to soften you, the seasons change but I’ve grown tired trying to change for you” on Letterman a decade ago. Future Islands aren’t scrapping so much anymore, not distilling punk roots into dance-pop like they did once upon a time ago—before anyone really knew their name and Herring wasn’t some on-stage messiah. But that’s okay, songs like “The Tower” and “Give Me the Ghost Back” exude a new kind of confidence and finesse. And, if People Who Aren’t There Anymore assures us of one thing, it’s that Future Islands will remain. Like Herring sings on “Peach”: “There’s life in this tunnel, we’re just hanging around.”

Matt Mitchell reports as Paste‘s music editor from their home in Columbus, Ohio.