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Jul 09, 2013 Islands By Mike Hilleary

Islands have announced the release of their fifth studio album, Ski Mask. The follow-up to last year’s A Sleep & A Forgetting, the 11-track effort is due out in September on frontman Nick Thorburn’s own Manqué label.

In a press release Thorburn explains, “This record is really about being angry. For better or worse, this record kind of sums up my experience thus far with being in a band. I feel like we’re kind of at a crossroads and this record is kind of me just declaring forfeiture in some ways. Like the third act of a movie—just after it seems like all hope is lost, that’s when the big breakthrough moment happens. For Islands, this is us waiting for the breakthrough moment. This record is kind of a culmination of all the different things we’ve done over the years. It’s basically a melting pot of all those sounds. So much of this record is about identity—specifically, the quest for finding out your own identity. … All of these feelings and ideas that have been bubbling up over the course of four previous albums finally came to the surface on this one. This record is like a summation of Islands, everything we’ve ever done distilled into one record. It’s basically an essential introduction to Islands—it’s everything we’ve ever been about.”

Leading off the album is record’s lead single “Wave Forms,” which has been made available to stream. In support of the record Islands have scheduled a tour for the fall across North America. Scroll down below the track to view the full list of shows.

Ski Mask:
Wave Forms
Death Drive
Becoming the Gunship
Nil
Sad Middle
Hushed Tones
Here Here
Shotgun Vision
Of Corpse
We’ll Do It So You Don’t Have To
Winged Beat Drums

Islands Tour Dates:
09/18 – Visalia, CA @ The Cellar Door
09/20 – Seattle, WA @ The Vera Project
09/21 – Vancouver, BC @ Media Club
09/22 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir
09/24 – San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel
09/25 – Santa Ana, CA @ The Constellation Room
09/26 – Los Angeles, CA @ Eagle Rock Center for the Arts
09/27 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah
10/08 – Boston, MA @ Great Scott
10/09 – Montreal, QC @ Il Motore
10/10 – Toronto, ON @ The Garrison
10/11 – Detroit, MI @ The Loving Touch
10/12 – Madison, WI @ Der Rathskeller
10/13 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
10/14 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
10/16 – Washington, DC @ Empty Bottle
10/17 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
10/20 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom

(www.islandsareforever.com)