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Jan 26, 2024People 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.
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Jan 30, 2024There may be no real surprises on People Who Aren’t There Anymore, but that hardly matters. They may no longer possess the surprise factor that delighted David Letterman so much, but Future Islands remain as affecting and impassioned as ever.
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Jan 29, 2024Here are grownup, weighty ruminations on devotion, sacrifice, separation and Covid, but The Tower and King of Sweden are also perfectly constructed pop.
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Jan 26, 2024It shows that Herring and company know exactly who they are and what they’re capable of, and that makes it a quietly exciting and gratifying chapter of a band who are clearly in this for the long haul.
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Jan 26, 2024People Who Aren’t There Anymore is that rare album where you might find yourself with the unusual but life-affirming compulsion to dance and quietly sob at the same time.
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Jan 25, 2024While there may be signs of holding back, ‘People Who Aren’t There Anymore’ still carries more than its fair share of upbeat anthems. This album isn’t much different, but why the band would ever change is a question that doesn’t need asking.
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Jan 25, 2024Future Islands’ fans will find plenty to love with this album, with some of the songs here already instant favourites and others feeling like some of the best, most fully realised of their career thus far.
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Jan 25, 2024It makes for an album that’s too involving and engaging and powerful to count as merely more of the same: you leave the turmoil of People Who Aren’t There Anymore feeling moved, rather than jaded.
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Jan 22, 2024A great, often excellent effort containing at least a couple outstanding moments that see Future Islands really crystallize as its best self. There are some overly familiar moments and the album essentially offers more of the same, but it’s arguably their best work since Singles, the group’s still-reigning high-water mark.
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Jan 22, 2024Throughout, the group's tried-and-true, gleaming synth-pop palette is flecked with fresh sonic ambition, particularly on slow-burning epics Corner of My Eye and The Sickness. At the centre of it all remains Herring’s fabulously expressive voice, tailor-made to spin tales of heartache.
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Feb 13, 2024People Who Aren’t There Anymore was not written as a reflection but a documentary of the emotional processes the band members were going through at the time. The meaning of the songs will continue to change for the band over time, just as they will for listeners.
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Jan 25, 2024People Who Aren't There Anymore is another refinement rather than a reinvention or bold step forward. It feels slightly less glossy than some of their other 4AD releases, coming a little closer to the lo-fi textures of earlier albums, but from the perspective of artists who have been working hard for nearly two decades.
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Jan 25, 2024More than any record in their discography, People Who Aren’t There Anymore is as newly accessible as it is relishing in prior experience.
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UncutJan 22, 2024On People Who Aren't There Anymore, then, no curveballs are thrown. However, the band's debt to OMD and New order is increasingly less obvious, while the earlier bombastic synths are being edged out by a more spacious, less forceful style of electronic poo that recalls fellow Baltimorean Dan Deacon, with echoes of Peter Gabriel. [Jan 2024, p.26]
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Feb 5, 2024The real difficulty lies in the fact that even if this is the most catastrophic heartbreak that’s ever happened to Herring, the band is content to write essentially some version of the same songs they’ve been writing for the past decade. They are good songs, but it’s almost impossible to draw any deeper meaning from Herring’s writing while it seems like the sequel of a sequel of a sequel.
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Jan 24, 2024There’s no question that Herring still writes songs capable of evoking strong emotions, but this time around they can occasionally feel too twinkly and repetitive. What’s missing is some risk-taking; unpredictable production flourishes that could better reflect the overall mood of the album and all the ambiguities that accompany a major life change.
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MojoJan 22, 2024New ground is not broken, but happily, neither are they. [Jan 2024, p.86]
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Jan 22, 2024As on past albums like 2017’s The Far Field, the quieter passages here are projected with too much force to either serve as a contrast to the songs’ more bombastic sections or fully convey the import of the lyrics. This grows especially tiring on tracks like “The Fight” and “Corner of My Eye,” which are synth-pop equivalents of stadium power ballads. Were the music itself able to match the downbeat undertones of Herring’s words, it might pack a bigger punch.
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