Logo
DiS Needs You: Save our site »
  • Logo_home2
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • In Photos
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Search
  • Community
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • Blog
  • Community

THIS SITE HAS BEEN ARCHIVED AND CLOSED.

Please join the conversation over on our new forums »

If you really want to read this, try using The Internet Archive.

The Mary Onettes

Islands

Label: Labrador Release Date: 25/01/2010

56785
lauren_potts by Lauren Potts January 26th, 2010

With a name like The Mary Onettes, you would be forgiven for filing this Swedish quartet's second LP somewhere between The Chiffons and The Supremes, assuming it to be a modern day equivalent to the soul-singing girl groups that shoo-wopped their way through the Sixties.

Typically though, expectations are usually wrong and true to form, this was one of them. The Mary Onettes couldn’t be any further from sequins and matching skirt-and-jacket sets. In fact, if they are guilty of any kind of style-thievery they should certainly be paying The Cure royalties for borrowing pretty much every technique they ever used.

But there's no denying that throughout Islands The Mary Onettes replicate luscious synth grandeur rather well. In fact, all of their musical tributes to A-Ha, New Order and the like are rather touching in their accuracy and on the whole, executed with well-studied panache.

After a shaky debut and a string of record label spats, Islands almost didn’t see the light of day, due to an unfortunate series of events in which all the original recordings were stolen from singer Philip Ekstrom’s car and the back-ups went to hard-drive heaven.

Taking it on the chin, the band re-recorded the lot in a handful of sessions, which lent themselves surprisingly well to the album’s over-riding sound. The tracks slide into one another like the happy- ending credits to every indie-rom-com you’ve ever watched: the swelling of full bodied synth movements orbiting around a helix of soaring string ensembles.

Lead track and upcoming single ‘Puzzles’ is the album’s most radio-friendly number, sweeping up all the emotions of the band’s last 12 months and neatly encapsulating them into Islands’ catchiest chorus. Granted, “I’m going out to stay up all night” isn’t exactly fodder for a raucous sing-a-long session but it will get you reminiscing through your own bittersweet memoirs.

‘Once I was Pretty’ could quite easily have been the track Joy Division never recorded, a distant cousin to ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. ‘Cry For Love’, the only real departure from the intense reverb that stereotypically throws up images of ethereal Scandinavian landscapes, provides a welcome break from oppressiveness, that is until the lyrics morbidly remind you that that “It’s only a matter of time before they put me in the grave.” You can’t help but imagine that Robert Smith might be flattered.

But The Mary Onettes are flirting with tackiness by the middle of the album. ‘The Disappearance of My Youth’ jars with the album’s heavy influences, rather obviously enlisting in the help of a child choir, as if the point wasn’t hammered home already.

The final tracks peter out in much the same baroque-pop manner. The album on the whole successfully ticks all the boxes on the romantic post-punk check-list, filling itself with intensely private and personal reflections on what has been a notoriously difficult year for the band. But this sentimentality doesn’t necessarily translate to accessibility and whilst Islands displays nuggets of well executed nostalgia, one can’t help but wonder if they have any style that isn’t old, borrowed or depressingly blue.

  • 6
    Lauren Potts's Score
  • 10
    User Score
Log-in to rate this record out of 10
Share on
   
Love DiS? Become a Patron of the site here »


LATEST


  • Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024


  • Drowned in Sound is back!


  • Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Year: 2020


  • Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter


  • Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing


  • Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alternative must sees



Left-arrow

Chew Lips

Unicorn

Mobback
56781
56787

Basia Bulat

Heart of My Own

Mobforward
Right-arrow


LATEST

    news


    Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024

  • 106145
  • news


    Drowned in Sound is back!

  • 106143

    news


    Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Y...

  • 106141
  • news


    Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter

  • 106139

    Playlist


    Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing

  • 106138
  • Festival Preview


    Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alterna...

  • 106137

    Interview


    A Different Kind Of Weird: dEUS on The Ideal Crash

  • 106136
  • Festival Review


    Way Out East: DiS Does Sharpe Festival 2019

  • 106135
MORE


    news


    The Neptune Music Prize 2016 - Vote Now

  • 103918
  • Takeover


    The Winner Takes It All

  • 50972

    Takeover


    10 Things To Not Expect Your Record Producer To...

  • 93724
  • review


    The Mars Volta - Deloused In The Comatorium

  • 4317

    review


    Sonic Youth - Nurse

  • 6044
  • feature


    New Emo Goth Danger? My Chemical Romance confro...

  • 89578

    feature


    DiS meets Justice

  • 27270
  • news


    Our Independent music filled alternative to New...

  • 104374
MORE

Drowned in Sound
  • DROWNED IN SOUND
  • HOME
  • SITE MAP
  • NEWS
  • IN DEPTH
  • IN PHOTOS
  • RECORDS
  • RECOMMENDED RECORDS
  • ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
  • FESTIVAL COVERAGE
  • COMMUNITY
  • MUSIC FORUM
  • SOCIAL BOARD
  • REPORT ERRORS
  • CONTACT US
  • JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
  • FOLLOW DiS
  • GOOGLE+
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • SHUFFLER
  • TUMBLR
  • YOUTUBE
  • RSS FEED
  • RSS EMAIL SUBSCRIBE
  • MISC
  • TERM OF USE
  • PRIVACY
  • ADVERTISING
  • OUR WIKIPEDIA
© 2000-2025 DROWNED IN SOUND