When Future Islands scored their first hit, they were already four albums into their career. It's been nearly a decade since their viral performance of “Seasons (Waiting on You)” on The David Letterman Show, a milestone that was almost a non-starter for the band: “I was actually holding back,” singer-songwriter Samuel T. Herring said of his rousing stage demeanor during the show. “That was going on in my head – don't go too far.” The implication there is that some part of him knew he would have a chance to go further.
“If I've said too much, please let me know,” sings Herring on “The Thief,” a highlight from Future Islands' new album. People who are no longer there. It's a scary feeling to hear from someone who dances proudly as everyone watches, who usually has so much to say that he moonlights as a rapper. And though the Baltimore band has hardly strayed from new wave-filtered synth-pop over the past decade, People makes it clear that things have changed.
The album largely revolves around Hering's breakup with a long-term long-distance partner, with whom he spent most of his time in her native Sweden. Travel restrictions during the height of the pandemic meant the couple were often apart for months at a time, although it wasn't until Hering started writing People that they've decided to split for good, which means these 12 tracks follow Herring's heartbreak in real time. During the first half of the album, he contemplates sending messages in bottles across the ocean, counts down the days until he boards his next plane to Sweden, and contemplates the agony of texting his partner “good morning” just before bed . —a seemingly innocuous interaction that only reinforces the physical distance between them.
Herring has sung about sadness, disappointment and disillusionment on several albums here and now, and although the events that highlight People have certainly affected him – “Sorrow and fear have an appetite,” he laments on the up-tempo dance number 'Give Me the Ghost Back' – at times he feels like he's running out of ways to stir up controversy, his impassioned screams diminished by its clichés. His imagery on the album's powerful opener “King of Sweden” is hampered by weak rhymes like “I'm always flyin'/So I'm always cryin” and feelings of feeling 15 again. The funky, bass-heavy “Say Goodbye” rests on the logistical difficulties of connecting between time zones, as Herring measures past time by how many cigarettes she's smoked.
