THE STILLS | LOGIC WILL BREAK YOUR HEART
The debut album from Montreal-based indie outfit The Stills was a dark, art-pop retro-infused masterwork that established the band’s songwriting abilities and sense of morose. Influenced by acts like The Smiths, Radiohead, Echo & The Bunnymen and Joy Division, the album is rich and saturated with reverbs, elegant guitars, and punchy drums.
Lyrically the album speaks of heartbreak, misery, losing friends, hating friends, and the process of change. It’s a sad-rock album for the trendy youth of its hey day, circa 2004 right smack in the middle of the indie-garage resurgence. It still holds up today as being as pleasing continuously listenable as when it was released, still danceable, and still overwhelmingly contagious.
The disco romp of “Still In Love Song” is both rosy and soaked in despair, while “Lola Stars and Stripes” and “Gender Bombs” cut through with sharp vocal melodies and bombastic drumming. Vocalist Tim Flectcher offers quirky lyrics that drip with a nostalgic hopeless longing for something forever unattainable and out of place.
It is this sense of displacement and longing that makes the album such a wonderful experience. Each song yearns for something just out of reach. The guitar line in “Ready For It” shines sprightly while the pads and synths create an atmosphere of lost memories and faded wishes. “Let’s Roll” expands into exuberant refrains as Fletcher croons the song’s title with pristine sincerity.
“Animals And Insects” is mopey but charming as Fletcher questions what it means to get high. It’s chorus is one of a kind; merely the three words “Oh my God…” repeated over and over in a disenchanted and romantic tone. It’s one of the most unique choruses you’ll ever hear and always strikes the ears and the gut just right.
“Fevered” keeps the chills rolling as the band’s energy moves like wind through the dark lonesome streets, proving the album’s strength is in its danceability to sorrow ratio. No band has ever been so buoyant yet so bleary at the same time.
Every song on the album lands right on target establishing The Stills as leaps above their contemporaries. Though notable success eluded the band, they continued to offer two more incredible albums to the world before disbanding. They chicly summed up Montreal and NYC cool both at once, hipster and genuine at the same time. Perhaps they were too self aware of themselves and the system to continue onward without proper recognition, fittingly manifesting the broken hearted despair they were channeling in the first place. Logically, that makes sense.
Love And Death
2.5 oz gin
1 oz overproof rum
1 oz cointreau
1 oz elderflower liquor
1 oz fresh lemon juice
*Rim a coupe glass with sugar. Shake ingredients well and strain into glass. Garnish with lemon peel