The Stills - Oceans Will Rise

Oceans Will Rise (2008, Arts & Crafts) The Stills' third studio album. ****

The best part of Oceans Will Rise is its culmination of three great bands; Radiohead, Coldplay, and Muse. The Stills borrow from each appropriately while keeping good aesthetic distance, and the end result is an accessible album with a darker picture painted in the lyrics. They manage to do several important things the right way. First, they're able to keep the material radio-friendly and memorable. "Being Here" is the obvious highlight with Fletcher's soaring vocals and Hamelin's Edge-like guitar riff. Second, they know how to work dynamics; there's never a point where the album gets too loud for too long, nor does it start off rocking and then slip into snoozing acoustic tranquility. Third, they get their message across without ramming it down everyone's throat, and they recognize that being louder doesn't make the message more so. With that, they succeeded where Black Holes and Revelations failed, which started with three masterful songs but then didn't know when to tune it down a bit.

Whether it's the percussion rally on "Snakecharming the Masses," the soft electronic whirl of "Snow in California," the melancholy "Everything I Build," or the indie-inspired "Panic," the Stills demonstrate that they've learned a lot from their last record. For this "post-rock" group (an idiotic label in itself), Oceans Will Rise is a triumph. (Snow In California, Being Here, Eastern Europe)