Ack Phhht!

Oceans Will Rise

I wrote a week back about the Stills’ great new single, “Being Here”. I’ve since had some time to listen to and digest the accompanying album, Oceans Will Rise, and the results are … pretty damn good, if imperfect, and a reassuring move back towards the band’s early sound after the stylistic detour on their second album.

I fell in love with the Stills’ first album, Logic Will Break Your Heart, when it came out in 2003.  One of the many albums mining 80’s post-punk in the wake of the breakout success of the Strokes and Interpol, the Stills stood out by pulling from a more diverse set of influences than their contemporaries, incorporating elements of shoegazing and Britpop as well as the more usual Chameleons and Echo & The Bunnymen references.  And Tim Fletcher’s affecting, emotional vocals gave their music a more intimate feel than many of their peers, who were largely trying to emulate Lou Reed’s nonchalance or Ian Curtis’ icy emotional remoteness.  The result was a gloomy, grandiose album – cohesive and compelling, if occasionally flawed (I never cared for their stabs at dance punk, for example, and the songwriting didn’t always live up to the pure pleasure of the album’s big sound).

Logic Will Break Your Heart

The band switched gears for their follow-up, though.  2006’s Without Feathers saw a line-up shift, as guitarist Greg Paquet left the group and drummer Dave Hamelin switched instruments to take his spot.  Hamelin was apparently already the band’s primary songwriter on the debut, and he now took up the bulk of the singing duties as well (he sang only one song on Logic, but over half on Feathers).  His voice, while not bad, didn’t have the presence of Fletcher’s, and combined with a radical shift in sound – away from 80’s anglophilia towards a more ragged, rock n’ roll sound – it left many fans perplexed and disappointed.  Feathers is actually a decent collection of songs, but it jettisons much of the personality of Logic, leaving the band sounding somewhat generic.

With Oceans Will Rise, the band seems to be trying to split the difference between the two albums.  It’s not a full return to Logic’s atmospherics and gloom, but there are bigger guitars, slicker production, more nods to new wave and Britpop … and a lot more Fletcher vocals (unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find songwriting credits for the album, to determine if this is a strategic move on the band’s part, or simply the result of Fletcher writing more material this time out).

photo by Liam Maloney

The album doesn’t open particularly strongly, starting with the dull, vaguely reggae-tinged “Don’t Talk Down”, and after the odd but propulsive “Snow In California”, stumbling again with the slow, percussive “Snakecharming The Masses”.

With track four, however – the aforementioned “Being Here” – the album catches fire.  That song’s arena-size sound isn’t matched by anything else here, but there’s plenty of other tracks that come close:  “Panic” and “Hands On Fire” ply similar anthemic terrain, while garage rocker “Eastern Europe” sounds like the band is on the verge of losing control.  Elsewhere, “I’m With You” hearkens back to the earthier sonics of Feathers, while the quiet album-closing ballad “Statue Of Sirens” is all finger-picked arpeggios and lovely harmony vocals, giving Fletcher a final platform to show off his beautiful voice.  The only real misstep in the album’s second half is “Rubioos/Palm Wine Drinkard”, another garage rocker – and an epic one at that – that somehow fails to pull its pieces together into something memorable.

The end result is an excellent album, lacking their debut’s cohesiveness and sense of gloom, but on a song-for-song basis possibly a bit stronger.  And fans who were dismayed with Feathers will be relieved to see that that record was just a detour, and that the band is now moving back onto course.  Recommended.

photo by Ashley Tredenick