Arts & Crafts
2008
Oceans Will Rise
About This Album
The commercial highlight of the Stills' third album is "Being Here," an uplifting piece of U2-inspired rock that finds a compromise between the band's post-rock beginnings and the dusty Technicolor strains of Without Feathers. Tim Fletcher's vocals are the stuff of stadium rock shows -- all high notes, reverb, and crackling passion -- and guitarist Dave Hamelin plays descending riffs like the Edge's hipster doppelganger. Nothing else on Oceans Will Rise matches that sort of grandeur, but the band still sounds energized and confident throughout these 12 tracks. Appropriately, this is the first time the Stills have returned with their lineup intact -- co-founder Greg Paquet quit in 2005 to finish college, drummer Julien Blais and keyboardist Liam O'Neil joined the group soon after, and former drummer Dave Hamelin took up Paquet's vacant spot on lead guitar. Coupled with a natural desire to push the envelope, the new version of the Stills took a different approach to 2006's Without Feathers, but they didn't seem at home -- quite possibly because they'd already been pigeonholed as disciples of Joy Division, a band that shared few similarities with the Stills' new sound.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9)

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