LimeWire Music Blog

Islands from The Mary Onettes, one of Sweden’s most promising exports, expands on the band’s knack for combining nostalgic gloom with commanding hooks. Islands is a large record, chock full of sweeping synths, powerful, yet airy vocals, and shimmering guitar work. Children’s choirs are employed with delicate finesse, while waves of reverb wash over the din for that extra dose of atmosphere. The album’s epic sound is the result of a series of misfortunes that almost halted the production of the album, including stolen computers and hard drive malfunctions. These mishaps forced the band to start from scratch several times over, making them slave away in the studio for almost two years. In rerecording Islands, the band have pushed themselves to create an album of true inimitable beauty, reshaping and expanding each track to create a genuinely impressive masterpiece. Though comparisons to the vast sea of 1980s alternative mainstays (a-ha, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Chameleons, etc.) are more than appropriate, The Mary Onettes have captured a precious moment in time with both playful romanticism and palpable gloom, offering up a sound that though long forgotten, is ripe for revival. It takes just one listen to the album’s opening track, “Puzzles,” to realize that The Mary Onettes are to be cherished, and fortunately, Islands delivers on this realization with nine more tracks of gleaming pop perfection.