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CRITIC REVIEWS
100
The vocals, the songs, the music, and the production work together to make Singles a one-of-a-kind experience that's nearly perfect.
92
Singles is leaps and bounds ahead of Future Islands earlier releases, which is no small feat considering the quality of their previous albums. It will undoubtedly make many year end lists, and is their best album to date.
90
All that brine is washed away on Singles, an album that throws off the shackles of the past and looks defiantly forward, not back.
90
Singles is a record that is experimental, yet hugely accessible. Future Islands have always tried to challenge their audience. As that audience looks set to grow ever larger, the band have set course for a thrilling pop journey.
90
Singles is an effortless wonder. Each and every track runs its course avoiding any pitfalls: they not once sound laboured or tryhard, and although this is still very un-standard pop, Future Islands fool you into believing this is the bar from which we gauge the charts.
90
Singles is an album of big, enriching pop anthems, all of equal rank. It's rare to find an album this coherent and firm in quality.
90
Singles is a taut album with no real lulls in energy or quality.
83
Future Islands are remaining relevant by crafting stimulating, quirky, synth-laden music that fuses the arcane with the universal; there’s a depth and complexity to their sound that’s lacking in many of their peers.
83
Their fourth album is their tightest, most complete effort yet.
80
Singles is an impressively assured record, particularly in terms of its robust, coherent sonic palette, which layers ebbing synth chords and delicate guitar lines over an infectious, driving rhythm section.
80
What they have created is a consistent work which showcases the band’s diversity as well as their skill and passion in making music which treads the ground between weird and wonderful.
80
Eight years since forming, four albums deep - there remains no other band sounding remotely like Future Islands.
80
Get past the initial jolt of weirdness and you'll find in his delivery a soul-puncturing cry from the very frontlines of life, able to evoke both desperate tragedy and skyscraping joy all at once.
80
Herring acts on impulse—at no point does he sound calculated or clever—offering an open invitation to the uninhibited, to the goofy, and the sentimental.
80
Get over Herring's Shatner-like earnestness like you did with Destroyer's Kenny G moves on Kaputt and you'll unlock the furrowed brows, baggy eyes and bulging veins beneath the metronomic perfection.
80
More sweeping and grand than any of their previous records, the trio’s fourth LP is by far their most cinematic, and if Singles‘ sound has a counterpart in Movieland it’s the films of Sofia Coppola.
80
Where previous albums were drowned in a wash of noise, Singles accentuates the band's softer tones and frames its wild bursts of energy with sharper focus. Singles makes Future Islands more accessible without sacrificing integrity.
80
Singles is an album overwrought with emotion. And like anything that thrusts itself at you in such a sincere way, you may either want to embrace its theatricality, or retreat from it.
80
In taming their wilder side, Future Islands’ ecstatic melancholy has never sounded quite so free.
80
There's nothing super-dark about Singles, but Herring has a tragic underdog quality. Beneath catchy pop hooks, there's deep-rooted pain in these love songs.
80
Listen to Singles ... and you’re made immediately aware that this is a band who have spent time honing their craft and perfecting their sound, and their fourth album is a glorious collection of soaring, uninhabited synth-pop gems for which Singles is the perfect title.
79
As easy as it is to enjoy, there is something fleeting in its pleasures, as if it isn’t quite complete without occupying the same spaces as the band.
75
Three years after their back-to-back records, time has served Future Islands well, especially given their expansive growth and their ability to forge their strongest qualities to precision.
70
Despite whatever changes have occurred, superficial, contextual, or otherwise, Future Islands have retained those things that have benefited them from inception: their sense of urgency, keen ear for drama, and their unrealized potential.
70
He pours out sad-ballad syrup like he's using it to clog a fresh wound. And sometimes the lyrics are as uncanny as the voice
70
Future Islands have never owned their sound so fully, even if they continually threaten to come off the rails or devolve into pure treacle at any moment.
70
There’s a lot of infectious funk on ‘Singles’, and Herring as a vocalist can pull off soulful with palpable ease, but this LP still feels as though it’s one step away from Future Islands’ masterpiece.
60
By the end of Singles, not only are these not singles, they aren’t even the strong Future Islands songs from previous records.
60
Herring’s growling vocals prevent proceedings from becoming too gloopy or nostalgic, and make ‘Singles’ a new-wave treasure.
Songs like "Seasons (Waiting On You)", "Spirit" and "Doves" are fairly straight forward catchy synth pop tunes, driven home by memorable and very pleasant melodies, incredibly infectious grooves and an exellent vocalist who can carry a lot of emotion without having to overperform it.
"Fall From Grace" is another standout to me. Love how the slow, pumping rythm of the song, the heavy synth work and screamed vocal parts all hammer down on you like ... read more
"Fall From Grace" is another standout to me. Love how the slow, pumping rythm of the song, the heavy synth work and screamed vocal parts all hammer down on you like ... read more
Remarkably unique and inspiring album full of great melodies and interesting ideas. It's great and it has the best song of 2014, 'Seasons'.
How many bands can trace their breakout moment back to an accident? By the mercy of getting his foot run over by a car, Samuel T. Herring was forced to develop his oddball dance moves he does on stage in order to help him move around better. As the band did the rounds on late night television, his dancing became a meme, and Future Islands started getting the recognition they very much deserved. But their success was built on so much more than gifs spread through tumblr. Singles is the ... read more
An album that is consistent and lives up to its title. It is catchy but maintains an element of depth and complexity to their songs. Watching this band perform live is something else.
Singles is good the first time you listen to it, but like al great records, it gets better each time.
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Year End Lists
| #3 | / | Under the Radar |
| #4 | / | Time Out New York |
| #7 | / | SPIN |
| #8 | / | MAGNET |
| #8 | / | musicOMH |
| #9 | / | Q Magazine |
| #10 | / | The Telegraph |
| #11 | / | BBC Radio 6 Music |
| #11 | / | NME |
| #12 | / | Gigwise |
More Lists
Decade Lists
| #65 | / | Paste (2010s) |
| / | AllMusic (2010s) |
MISC LISTS
| #2 | / | PopMatters (Indie Rock) |
| #5 | / | Paste (First Half) |
| #9 | / | Exclaim! (Pop & Rock) |
| #14 | / | Exclaim (First Half) |
| #20 | / | Pretty Much Amazing (First Half) |
More Lists
Track List
- Seasons (Waiting on You)
- Spirit
- Sun in the Morning
- Doves
- Back in the Tall Grass
- A Song for Our Grandfathers
- Light House
- Like the Moon
- Fall from Grace
- A Dream of You and Me
In Library (47)
stereogum.com
New Track: Future Islands – “Calliope” pitchfork.com
Future Islands Share Lyric Video For New Song “Cave” spin.com
Video: Future Islands – “Ran” 
Added on: January 8, 2014
