Album Review: Oceans Will Rise by The Stills

It's with relief, then, that the Stills pull themselves together for Oceans Will Rise. Like Without Feathers, the album explores a continent's worth of new territory, but it does so with brash confidence and a subtle "screw you" attitude. The bandmates don't bat an eyelash when they throw a disjointed bridge into the middle of "Being Here," only to launch back into the song's accessible hook 20 seconds later.

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With all the really bad shit going down on this rock we call Earth right now (famine, war, global warming, escalating gas prices, the Jonas Brothers), it’s easy to let yourself get caught up in a panic. Theoretical questions -- Is the human race going to survive? Is the Earth going to disappear tomorrow? When will war end and peace begin? -- will become weighty inner-brain discussions as you become increasingly sure that you can solve all the problems that those douches in the White House, and nay, the world, haven’t figured out. If you get pissed off enough you’ll make an album.

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Weathering the sophomore slump in today's profligate disposability practically defies comprehension. Polishing off a third disc with negligible erosion of verve and skill while cementing identity boggles the mind. Global warming means Oceans Will Rise, but the Stills navigate DayGlo 1980s art-pop like captains of our water world. The Montreal quintet's 2003 debut, Logic Will Break Your Heart, cast the Cure's overripe melancholy in New Wave's steely melodrama before critical success burned the band's original incarnation to the ground.

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