Islands is growing up.

After break-ups and fall-outs, front man Nick Thorburn seems ready to embrace maturity, just in time for the release of the band’s second album, which came out on Tuesday.

Released on ANTI- records, Arm’s Way is a heavier, darker effort. Even with violin swinging about, opening track “The Arm” is anchored by pounding, rhythmic drumming and a simple, foreboding bass line.

In a phone interview with North by Northwestern, Thorburn said the new album has more prog-rock elements than his previous work. On the 11 minute “Vertigo,” themes fall away, are replaced and eventually reoccur, though in slightly different form. The music jockeys between melancholy and chipper. It’s the ironic, up-beat parts that give away Islands’ pedigree.

Like 2006’s Return to the Sea, it’s a compilation of new and old songs, dating as far back as 2003, during Thorburn’s time with Montreal-based band, The Unicorns. The album is assuredly gloomier than previous Thorburn releases but any cohesion wasn’t created during the songwriting process. “I never write songs specifically for an album,” Thorburn said. What he does do is collect songs and put together a mix that is “consistent,” share a “conceptual quality” and a compatible “general sonic landscape” (the last said facetiously).

Thorburn has long been known for his cryptic lyrics, and Arm’s Way makes death even more prevalent than before. Though he penned “Ready to Die” for The Unicorns’ 2003 Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?, the songs on Arm’s Way deal with death, especially homicide, in a more serious, less cheeky way. “I’m getting older,” Thorburn said. “I think about [death]. It’s only going to get worse as time goes by.”

Time may influence thoughts of death but it doesn’t have a thing to do with maturity. Islands’ ever changing line-up is young, with drummer Aaron Harris and violinist Kate Perkins leaving McGill University for the band.

“Maturity is a state of mind,” said Thorburn, 26. “It has to do with experience and mental capacity.”

Touring has been difficult for Thorburn-led projects. Alden Penner, guitarist and founding member of The Unicorns, left shortly after the band’s Australian tour while Jamie Thompson, ex-Unicorn and ex-drummer of Islands, left after a two-month European tour.

Though difficult, Thorburn said touring is a necessary counterpart to the studio, allowing the musician to escape the bubble of songwriting. “You’re getting immediate reaction,” he said, “whether you’re getting validation or rejection.”

However, it is also often a more trying time. “When I was in The Unicorns, I was more of a kid and not really responsive to people’s wants and needs,” Thorburn admitted. “Just being a grown-up goes a long way in making [the band] experience tolerable.”

The band’s newfound cohesion might have something to do with his optimism. “We’re really a group now as opposed to before when it was just a little more haphazard, an afterthought.”

With Return to the Sea, Islands felt more like a personal project rather than a unit. Gone are the days of lying around Canadian bedrooms working out songs. Islands has a “unified voice” now. “It’s all really melded into one.”

That unification, he said, has contributed to the heavier sound of Arm’s Way. “We’re an entire band, turning it up,” he said.

One factor is the change in drummers. Unlike Thompson’s “certain touch,” new drummer Harris has “really mastered simple.”

“We were able to go into that rock and roll standard rhythm that’s sometimes really essential.”

Thorburn insists he’s grown past his immature ways. There’s proof is in his name change back from “Nick Diamonds,” a stage name he first adopted while with The Unicorns, to his birth name “Nick Thorburn.”

“[The stage name] was kind of a way to hide behind the songs,” he said, “I feel comfortable enough about [the songs] now that I don’t need to have a fake name.”

One thing that has remained unchanged is the catchphrase “Islands Are Forever.” Adopted and made famous after a press release announcing Thompson’s departure, it has become a symbol for the band’s sheer ability to still exist. Whether the play on Thorburn’s stage name and De Beer’s “Diamonds Are Forever” campaign remains accurate isn’t the important part. “I like the sound of it, whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter.”

Perhaps it has something to do with Thorburn’s view on life these days. “I’m trying to remain in the present as long possible,” he said.