Introducing Endless Mode: A New Games & Anime Site from Paste
The takeaway moment from On The Water is a woeful Samuel T. Herring bemoaning, “Do you believe in love?” He does—and he doesn’t. The Future Islands frontman spends much of the group’s third album waxing nostalgic over dead-end romances and the swollen heartaches that come with them. It’s a bit manic-depressive, to be sure, like the obsessive friend who just can’t comprehend why things didn’t work out. But the album seems to be less about keeping those feelings in than it is about finally letting them go. On The Water is a cryptic confessional, Herring’s own song-by-song exorcism of haunted thoughts and occupied memories.