Future Islands

With its fusing of the best of analog and early digital synth-based music with a modern aesthetic, Baltimore's Future Islands might seem like a contemporary version of new wave to an uninformed listener. Really, though, the act is a closer musical cousin to Architecture and Mortality and Dazzle Ships-era Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, whose own sound was rooted in post-punk. Strong, fluid, atmospheric bass lines carry the songs along like boats at sea, boldly charting promising new territory in a hitherto undiscovered tropical archipelago of the imagination. There's also a curiously romantic undercurrent to the music that manifests itself in vocals that implore and passionately declare heartfelt emotions — perhaps as a reminder that through the international language of music, no one is truly alone.