Let's Forget That D.O.A.

Islands - Heartbeat/Devout

It’s hard not to smile when you think of Islands. Their lead singer used to call himself Nick Diamonds and the drummer’s stage name is J’Amie Tambeur. Not since We Are Scientists’ take over at NME Awards 2008 did we have such a good laugh. And, just like We Are Scientists, one can imagine that taking themselves seriously isn’t really one of Islands’ things.

You get that feeling when you hear ‘Heartbeat’. It has all those things that no, we do not like… no. Even T-Pain would blush due to the heavy use of Auto-Tune and it’s been tagged as ‘what Kanye imagines when he listens to *insert ‘indie’ band here *’. It’s finger licking tongue-in-cheek.

Not far from the tongue-in-cheekiness of ‘Heartbeat’ is four-to-the-floor disco number ‘Devout’ with its 1-2 drums. At any rate, both songs are a clear reminder that, nowadays, the ones who make brilliant pop songs are our alternative heroes and not the actual mainstream MTV stars.