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Future Islands at Mr. Smalls (8/8/14)

August 11, 2014

This past weekend a couple of minor (okay, very minor) Buffalo imports hit up the Steel City as part of the Quad City Blogger Tour while one of Pittsburgh’s best-bred acts, the splice king Girl Talk, invaded Canalside. Hitching a ride with Buffalo Eats, a couple of us buffaBLOGGERS took full advantage of the wonderful accommodations that our host city, and more specifically the staff at Visit Pittsburgh, supplied. Between exploring some Pittsburgh attractions (the museum of megalomaniacal Andy Warhol may have been our favorite), and a lot of good eating and drinking (did I mention we traveled with Buffalo Eats?), we somehow managed to make a musical weekend out of it. Friday night in Millvale, about a ten minute drive across one of Pitt’s many bridges, we hit up Mr. Smalls for a sold-out performance from Baltimore’s Future Islands. It’s a super-quick ride over the river from downtown Pittsburgh[...]

Future Islands

August 8, 2014

A about a month or so ago, we were reached out to by Visit Pittsburgh, the Steel City’s travel bureau, inviting us down to the city this weekend for something called a Quad City Blogger Tour. Bloggers from Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Columbus – the Quad Cities – were invited to check out the city, and write about their experiences. Seemed easy enough. Our long time blog buddies, Buffalo Eats, were also asked to come so we decided to make a road trip out of it. With Donnie and Ali (the Buffalo Eats crew) on hand, food and drink will be a flowin all weekend, but we needed some music hook for our writing. Lucky for us, one of 2014’s buzz bands, Future Islands, will be playing at Mr. Smalls this evening, so that helps us out quite a bit. The Baltimore based, post-punk/new wave act blew up this year[...]

Future Islands – Singles

March 25, 2014

If you’ve never heard of the synth-rock trio Future Islands, then take a moment to watch their unorthodox yet strangely entertaining performance on the Late Show with David Letterman a couple of weeks ago. That should give you a good idea of the group’s emotional attachment to each performance, particularly the passion lead singer Samuel T. Herring seems to have. Following the success of 2011’s On the Water, the trio went back to the drawing board and came up with the concept of making another album that was rhythmically cohesive while focusing on their fiery beats and catchy hooks. Luckily for them, all of those preconceived thoughts fully embody their fourth studio album, Singles.  Right away, the track listing foreshadows a theme of optimism throughout its collection with songs such as “Spirit,” “Sun in the Morning,” and “Doves” to name a few. The opening track to Singles, “Seasons (Waiting on You),” is a combination of everything Future Islands is sonically: breezy[...]