It’s hard to remember that not too long ago Echo & the Bunnymen worship seemed novel and stealing from Joy Division seemed edgy, but after countless forgettable albums by countless forgettable bands, brooding post-post-punk has lost its power to effect. Montreal's the Stills were lucky; they got in under the gun in 2003 with Logic Will Break Your Heart, a good, not great, collection of classic gothic tones, percussive guitars, and expansive melodies (made all the more dramatic by Tim Fletcher's lovely, expressive voice). Smartly, by the time fickle crowds had moved on, so had the Stills, embracing a looser, Americana-influenced sound on 2006's Without Feathers. Across both albums are wonderful singles (though none as infectiously winning as their first, "Still in Love Song"), but also an awful lot of filler. And with a sound that is so mercurial and a spotty hit-to-dud ratio, it's easy to be trepidatious about album number three.
Luckily, Oceans Will Rise is at least on par with its predesessors. Here the Stills have reconciled the mannered 1980s sound that first got them noticed with the open-hearted earthiness of their sophomore effort. For instance, album opener "Don't Talk Down", with its synthesizer effects and spacey harmonies, takes on shades of the Steve Miller Band's "Fly Like An Eagle" (albeit with flashes of the sort of "Killing Moon" swooning you've come to expect from the Stills). And "Hands on Fire" has the sexy high gloss and decadent melody of Rilo Kiley's "Dreamworld", which is already a modern take on the easy, coke-party California of Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac.
Those who preferred the twangy, grittier vibe of Feathers will be reassured by "I'm With You", with its acoustic guitar underpinning and Fletcher's Bono-like, earnest delivery, and "Statue of Sirens", with its electric arpeggios and intimate vocals. But the darkly romantic, epic overtones of their debut are back, too, though in a rawer form. Sleek "Panic" would've sounded at home on Logic but for the intricacy of the multi-part harmonies singing the chorus (the mark of a maturing band) and the shockingly brutal and delightfully out-of-place percussion freak-out that comes roughly two-minutes in (the mark of a more experimental one). For a group that has always been chasing the dragon of their breakthrough hit, it must be sweet relief to come as close as they do on the album’s first single, "Being Here", which blooms from its ethereal, droning opening to a sunny chug, climaxing in an anthemic chorus. And "Everything I Build" is a welcome ballad. With a reverberating pulse and sweet, doo-wop-ballad bridge, it is bursting with the kind of heart that that bands like Interpol (to whom the Stills have constantly been compared) have always sorely lacked.
But there is filler here too. The repetition in "Snakecharming the Masses" is a blatant attempt to out-Radiohead Radiohead, but without a hook to hold on to or some more dynamic melody choices, it falls flat. And "Eastern Europe" is enjoyable as a tightly coiled Spoon homage, but the Stills wear the song like an ill-fitting suit. Oceans Will Rise is not a bad album, but it is very much the sound of a band still trying to figure out who they are-- and in fairness, they have lost and gained a member since their first record. But three albums into a career, they should have a better idea than this.
