Search - The Stills :: Oceans Will Rise

Almost a happy medium of the first two albums

Kyle Garret | Los Angeles, CA United States | 08/21/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I can see some people pointing to this as a step back towards the sound of "Logic Will Break Your Heart," at least on certain tracks. I can see some people being happy that it doesn't sound MORE like "Logic Will Break Your Heart." Personally, I loved both "Logic" and "Without Feathers."



And while "Oceans Will Rise" sounds almost like an amalgam of sounds from those two albums, rest assured that it stands on its own.



Stand outs, to me, include:



"Snow In California" might have been a better choice to open the album and sounds like it could have been a b-side to "Logic."



"Snakecharming the Masses" is a fantastic song and shows some really inspired songwriting. There's nothing really easy about the progression in this song, yet it still feels natural. They seem to avoid what's expected, though.



"Being Here" is the first single, I believe, and it's easy to see why. Actually, THIS was probably a more obvious first track, but hindsight being 20/20 I think it might have given a false impression of the record. It's a good, catchy tune.



"Everything I Build" is the first definitively somber song on the album and it's a winner. That's actually probably the most distinct part about this record -- the mellow tunes. They're all very good.



"Eastern Europe" is insanely listen-able. In parts it reminds me of the Foo Fighters, in fact. It's just a catchy pop song. It's strut worthy.



"Hands On Fire" is perhaps my favorite song on the album at the moment. It's mellow and catchy and has a good groove.



"Dinosaurs" is yet another mellow song and maintains the quality. That's not to say that these mellow songs move. They do. But they all have a fairly somber tone more fully realized than earlier releases.



"Rooibos/Palm Wine Drinkard" feels more like a "Without Feathers" tune but, really, it's just a rockin' song.



All in all, good stuff."

The Stills - Oceans Will Rise 6.5/10

Rudolph Klapper | Los Angeles / Orlando | 08/19/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"French-Canadians the Stills have always been one of my favorite bands to emerge from the post-punk scene in the early millennium, and easily my favorite from Montreal (sorry, Arcade Fire). They lacked the dance-punk fever of the Rapture, they didn't go heavy on the eyeliner like Interpol, and they didn't act like they were the saviors of rock like the Strokes, but their fuzzy brand of Television-esque guitar rock and singer Tim Fletcher's strong, emotive vocals made 2003's Logic Will Break Your Heart a masterpiece of catchy, thoughtful new wave rock. Drummer Dave Hamelin's switch to vocals and lead guitar on follow-up Without Feathers surprised many, and the record was intentionally polarizing; it's Americana (Canadiana?), 70's big rock sound was a 180-degree shift away from Logic's Smiths-ian sound. Oceans Will Rise, then, is the sound of a band trying to fit something in between those two extremes, an attempt that comes out sounding exactly like what it is: a compromise.



On Oceans Will Rise, the Stills shift the focus back towards Fletcher on lead, although Hamelin pipes in on a few tunes. Leadoff song "Don't Talk Down" opens promisingly with a stuttering drumbeat and a simple riff before expanding on the theme with piano and a touch of horror-show synths and Hamelin's angry vocals. However, the song quickly turns repetitive, and Hamelin's weak lyrics soften its "screw-you-ex" attitude.



"Snow In California" takes a page from Logic's playbook, a tasty melding of pounding drums and ringing guitars that float and bubble at all the right places, and Fletcher is in fine form on vocals. "Being Here," the album's first single, is an appropriately anthemic song that mimics Without Feather's crashing guitars and a chorus that is bound to stick in your head for days, but the song is so lyrically uninspired and formulaic that it just comes off as bland arena-rock. It is unfortunately followed by "Everything I Build," Ocean's requisite slow song and one that is not only boring but also attempts to build into a climax that inexplicably ends before anything remotely cathartic can occur.



The second half is all in all on a much higher level than the first half, surprising from a band that has tended to make their albums top-heavy in the past. "Panic" scuttles along on a complicated, jittery drum rhythm and tinkling guitar picking that frames the paranoid theme quite well. "Eastern Europe" has one of the best riffs on the record and is pure punk fury, sharp cymbals and gyrating guitars led along by some of Fletcher's most inspired singing yet. And despite "I'm With You"'s tendency to wax sappy, Hamelin's vocals are just earnest enough and the melody is just poppy enough to make it one of the Stills' great love songs.



While most of Oceans Will Rise is musically similar to either of their first two albums, the few songs where they stretch their boundaries are some of the best. "Snakecharming The Masses" is what Tim Fletcher must have meant when he said that the group felt "a raw energy of inspiration" during recording. It fits its title admirably with a tribal drum pattern and an Eastern vibe that matches the song's undeniably fierce attitude with minor instrumentation. "Rooibos/Palm Wine Drinkard," meanwhile, builds up energy in a guitar rave-up that descends into a lilting jam (are those calypso drums I hear?). The best song on the album, "Dinosaurs," is what this album should have been more of; excellent drum work and atmospheric synths coupled with truly great spiraling guitar and some choice lyrics; call it Logical Feathers, if you want.



I, for one, loved Without Feathers just as much as I enjoyed Logic, and thought the band was truly progressing in a way many early-2000s post-punk bands failed to do. Oceans Will Rise shows glimpses of the Stills' continued ability to evolve, such as the excellent "Dinosaurs" or the touching closer "Statue of Sirens" (which does much better what "Everything I Build" tried to do), but their tendency to fall back on the styles of the past makes much of Oceans a re-tread of their earlier work. While it probably won't be as divisive as Without Feathers and it certainly isn't as buzzworthy as Logic, it's a solid, albeit smaller, step forward, and one that bodes well for the Stills' future."

The Stlls find themselves and grow

Kevin C | 08/26/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"So it seems as I believed they would after Without Feathers came out, The Stills have returned to form and better than ever. I am a huge fan of both Logic and Without Feathers, however I think all true Stills fans can't even deny that The Stills belong rocking out rather than go in a more organic territory as they did with their second album. But what I'm shocked at is how this album is being so negatively received by Stills fans calling them "comprising to mainstreamers." What is wrong with experimentation of bands? Each time a band does it whether it's The Strokes, Bloc Party, The Stills, it's like all the fans freak out and chant "oh waaah it's just not the same." Well we all love LWBYH but I want to hear more from The Stills, particularly growth. And what I admire so much from Oceans Will Rise is how amazingly well-fitted the band is in their attempt to make amazing post-punk. It's not that they CAN'T make organic/Shins-esque music well, because there definitely are some good songs on Without Feathers but the Post-Punk arena (maybe even a REAL arena...someday) is what they Stills do best and where they simply belong. It is amazing to hear the hints of Logic as well as WF on this album yet it is even greater to hear them sounding so confidently epic all at the same time. Rather than spit out just why each and every song is so great on this album, it's best to look at this album as a truly coherent piece of post-punk genious. Tim Fletcher has by far THE BEST singing voice in the post-punk circuit simply because well....he can. Whether you agree politically with the things that Fletcher sings or not (sadly most of the time I don't) he is one of those singers that can sing with such affecting self-awareness that you believe him and in him nonetheless. And though I was not a fan of them inserting a keyboardist in the mix on WF The Stills find ways to work with their new members in a way that no longer strays toward something that they aren't but instead they MAKE IT do what they want it to do for them. Simply put, Oceans Will Rise is probably one of the best gifts the 2008 music year has to offer and that's saying a lot because there have been some great things to happen. But I believe that finally The Stills know who they are and what they want to be and they are not about to "compromise" that for anyone ...they are simply doing their best and I can definitely see that Oceans Will Rise is truly a great sign of things to come from The Stills."