Future Islands in New York City, February 2014 Photo by Rebecca Smeyne for SPIN

It's a very cold February night in Baltimore and Future Islands frontman Sam Herring is shuffling across the Floristree stage like a cranked-up Elvis impersonator. Exuding memory-haunted menace, he stalks around as if he were hunting prey, pauses, finds a fan's eyes and stares into them, stopping mid-dance move. Dozens of diehard fans in the front become one swaying, sweaty clump of pumping fists and pogo-ing legs with the occasional crowd surfer poking out. Not quite a mosh pit more like the moves and grooves of a rave dancing its pain away, mindfully concentrated. Most of the people in the front of this legendary (and quasi-legal) DIY performance space were raised on patron saint of B'more spaz-out, Dan Deacon, and his one, simple rule for going nuts at a show: Jump up and down, not side to side, so nobody falls down and gets fucking hurt.

"It was bonkers," Herring proudly brays the next day. It's early in the afternoon and Future Islands are gathered in their rehearsal space, a tiny room in the basement of Baltimore's Current Space Gallery. Last night was the group's sixth time playing Floristree since 2007, though they've been there plenty more times if you count side-project gigs and, as Herring fondly recalls, watching Ravens football games with friends. "There's a spirit at Floristree," Herring says. "It's a living space. Like, this is also somebody's home."

Here in Baltimore, Future Islands are local heroes, with a wider, more populist appeal than they have elsewhere, which means plenty of people at Floristree were there for the first time after encountering the band at, say, 2012's Virgin Free Fest or the city's more conventional rock clubs. But that night was an important moment for the band bringing old and new fans into (or back to) a personally special space just before the release of what will certainly be their most high-profile record to date. This month marks the release of the four-piece's fourth album, Singles, a major indie-rock release (on fabled indie label, 4AD) that will finally push the trio rounded out by bassist/guitarist William Cashion and multi-instrumentalist producer Gerrit Welmers to a much higher level of visibility, but still on their own terms.

Nearly one month after their hometown Floristree show, the group performs Singles' "Seasons (Waiting On You)" on the Late Show With David Letterman in New York, becoming mini-memes in the process. Herring, blindly grooving on the stage, pounding his chest hard enough for it to pop on the mic, boldly sold the drama of their bittersweet single. "Buddy, come on!" Letterman yelled, as he strode over to thank them afterwards. "How about that? I'll take all of that you've got!" The performance itself was the Floristree show writ large: a DIY victory lap for longtime fans and a commanding introduction for the previously uninitiated, the moment when people outside of Baltimore and the Acela DIY corridor they've long traveled finally got around to realizing how special these hyper-sincere synth-punks truly are. In short, Future Islands went on national television and did exactly what they've been doing at venues all over the country for the past eight or so years. And people responded in turn.

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In 2006, Future Islands formed in Greenville, North Carolina out of a high concept, high-drama, Devo-esque group called Art Lord & the Self-Portraits. As arch as Future Islands are heart-on-the-sleeve, Art Lord which swirled around Herring, who played the role of a pretentious German art rocker imploring everyone to love his music, improvising lyrics live around previously written hooks and shambling synth-pop foreshadowed the caustic charisma and earnest theatrics that would define their next project. Theatrics were a part of their DNA from the start. "We were 18-year-old kids and we wanted to throw a party," Herring says of the Art Lord days.

With Future Islands, though, they threw compelling fragility into the middle of the party. With this approach, they would quickly became an integral part of Baltimore's Wham City collective, and the fractured, sugar-rush party music the scene proffered. Their debut EP, 2006's Little Advances, was full of relentless, rinky-dinky beats and frenetic screams. (Seek out the frustrated utopianism of "Nu Autobahn.") It was and is, paradoxically and simultaneously, their least characteristic release and the recording that most closely matches their manic onstage presence. Their follow-up, 2008's Wave Like Home, released after the band relocated to Baltimore, introduced their more explicitly maudlin side by way of "Little Dreamer," which often closes their shows to this day.

But Future Islands made their name by consistently and aggressively touring behind a generous live show that balanced, precariously, both club-friendly and collapse-to-the-ground-and-cry catharsis. And until 2010's In Evening Air, their first for Chicago label Thrill Jockey, the band's live show overwhelmed their recorded output. Though that record was the furthest they'd come yet to striking a balance between extremes on tape, On The Water, a simmering break-up album that followed the next year, made it clear that they maintained a healthy contrarian streak as well. "With On The Water, we knew people were gonna be like, 'What the hell is this," Herring admits. "In Evening Air brought us a lot of new fans and people expected an In Evening Air 2, and we gave them a slow-burning record." Releasing a subtle bummer of a record like On The Water though, "allowed [the group] to never have to deal with expectations ever again."

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Dance Like No One's Watching: Future Islands Break Out On Their Own Terms