100 Greatest Songs of the 2010’s #5 Future Islands – Seasons (Waiting On You)

Released : 2014

Who can tell when change is right around the next corner? Up until their appearance on Letterman, Future Islands had been a fairly obscure synth pop band who, despite releasing a handful of albums had barely scratched the eyeball of public consciousness on either side of the Atlantic.

The first single from their new album recorded for British label 4AD, Seasons was a good old fashioned song about heartbreak that ran with a Metronomy-style keyboard lilt, with on the night singer Samuel T. Herring gyrating around the stage like an uncle after one too many white wine spritzers.

Then came the instant everything became different, as Herring suddenly began shredding as if in a black metal outfit: you can almost hear the audience sit back in shock and then somehow, in a rare moment of benevolence, the music gods repent from sending the band back into humiliated exile and allow them deliver one of the decade’s signature live performances. Gambles this big rarely pay off, but when they do they open doors you never even knew existed.