The Stills - Without Feathers (Drowned In Sound)
3/5
By: Alex Lee Thomson
Y'know what... this is good. It may sound a little too close to their debut, albeit a quieter version, it may be a happy copy of a lot of other things on the market, it might even be a little poppy to be taken as seriously as it deserves... but quite frankly, this is pretty bloody good pop.
It's straightforward, uncomplicated, catchy and totally honest. It's got a lemonade freshness and bittersweet layering of uplifting vocals and Devine Comedy-like sense of liberation. It's a Saturday morning version of softness and childlike simplistic beauty. Their tunes mature out of nothing, increasing and developing into full-blown organized moments of vast anthemia with a constant smile on its face and without ever having to worry about manufacturing a climax. The album lifts you up, punches you in the face and let's you dangle for a bit no less than three times on 'Without Feathers', making the LP sound more like a collection of freestanding EPs put together with string and a cooperative enormity. Every track works from the strolling vocal graze of 'She's Walking out' to the Supergrass-ish clapping, end-of-night cheer of 'Oh, Shoplifter'. Even the morose piano scaling on 'Outro' just leads you into another four songs of drum-smashing break-neck speed racing happiness, by way of heartbreak in words.
The only criticism with this is that it's all rather too peaceful and by the end you're feeling a bit sick from the house-sized block of sugar it poses on you. The musical talent is there, the album hosting numerous moments of escalating brilliance, but having seemingly been over-produced it all washes down the same way, becoming background-like all too easily. It's almost frustrating as you know it could have been so much more had the music been able to remain undercooked, rough even, and because of it the album will probably go unrecognised by the hysteric dark-loving members of this here nation. At times it tries to be aggressive, but doesn't quite come off as believable, instead this albums best bits are found in its honest moments of glossy post-punk pop and at no point is that more proven that 'In The Beginning'. The tambourine and hidden guitars beginning like the best Jet songs (and, yeah were a couple), but summarily widen into something closer to what you'd find on The Who's 'Tommy', with a 'Pinball Wizard' shake of organs and drama.
If this had been left to fester untouched as a raw, more live-like creation, it would no doubt have been big, remaining focusable as a standard for Canadian music, but having been fiddled with to the extent that it has been, it's only merely 'good'. But being honest, though it pains us to be like it sometimes, it ain't gonna change the world.
Watch the video to 'Destroyer' HERE.
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