Samuel T Herring, singer with Pitchfork-endorsed Baltimore electropoppers Future Islands, doesn't just have a name that conjures Pulp Fiction, Star Trek and a smug Stewart Lee sidekick all at once, he's an untameable force of nature. Opening with a strait-laced history of the band's trips to London that makes you think you've stumbled into a particularly dry Henry Rollins stand-up gig, from the first note he's foot-sliding and hair-slicking his way through Back in the Tall Grass like a geek from Fame posing in an invisible mirror, or trying to pull his face off in a manic fit during Tin Man.
His voice – a liquid, elastic soul warble – jolts between Anthony Hegarty, Michael Bolton, Louis Armstrong and a vomiting Honey Monster. He's part chest-thumping motivational therapist, part death-metal goblin and part disco-funky Kevin Spacey, and he's utterly captivating. His band, thankfully, provide a solid base of icy synth-pop. They're playing, it seems, an entire 1985 teen flick soundtrack from opening party scene (Doves), to romantic encounter (Sun in the Morning), to reflective wind-in-the-mullet motorbike ride at dawn (Song for Our Grandfathers) and the final dance-off at the prom (Long Flight).
Besides the odd echo of Born Slippy, they conform to an on-trend, formulaic, retro-80s shimmer – New Order, Hall & Oates, OMD, The Pointer Sisters – so glossy, superficial and evocative of ballooning cuts of trouser that we should surely have grown tired of its long-standing "ironic" grip on alternative pop by now. But, drawing largely from fourth album Singles, Future Islands build a warm, human depth beneath their plastic veneer, with catchy songs of nostalgia, love and loneliness, and Herring's antics are an endless distraction. One minute he's dishing out earnest life lessons about "dark times in our lives and the friends who bring us back", the next he's gargling phlegm like a struggling weightlifter or theatrically plucking at a breeze on Give Us the Wind – a song about defying one's doubters. A one-man masterclass in enlivening tired revivals.
