Customer Reviews

Without Feathers

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

The majority of the reviews here seem to be a referendum on change. Some people seem to be defending the differences between this disc and the first one as growth and evolution. I don't think anyone who seriously loves music questions whether any band worth its salt ought to grow and change over time. But sometimes, well, "changes are no good.". If Picasso started painting like Norman Rockwell, that's not progress.

"Without Feathers" is not a bad album. If this was their first disc, I think reviewers would treat it with moderate kindness and probably say that the work shows promise. But, really, as a follow up recording to a masterpiece it's a C+ at best. They had a vibe and they lost it.

I was a fan of the original lineup and talent placement and I make no apologies for that. This is simply not the same band. In their personnel shift they lost their heart and soul. That happens with bands. You could find one example after another over the last 40 years. Great Bands make dumb decisions, or egos just get caught up in the craziness of the music business. Admittedly, "Logic Will Break Your Heart" is a hard act to follow and the pressures of the recording industry and critical expectations probably just took its toll. "Without Feathers" is going to be one of those $2.29 discs that clutters cut-out bins. Just watch and see.

We fall in love with a recording and it defines a time for us. Some people love a band so much that they just can't let go even when the band is clearly--and I mean clearly--on a downhill slide. They want to keep clinging to that magic, every little tiny scrap and chord. I'm not going to hang on to the ghost of something that was really good. Goodbye, Stills, it was nice. We'll always have "Logic Will Break Your Heart".

I actually think it is. You see, just like many of you who have given this album bad reviews, I would have rated this as 1 star after my first listen. It was just not what I was expecting from the freaking Stills. After Logic, I was anticipating this next album to be more of the same sad-emotional-pop-rock, and I was greatly disappointed at first. Did they get happier and forget how to rock out? But I put aside my memory of what once was, and decided to listen to the album as if it was a completely different band. After a few listens, I can say that I love this album. I find myself listening to it more than Logic now.

Random thoughts on Without Feathers:
1. The catchy pop hooks are still here, just in folk rock form now :)
2. I disagree with people saying that Logic was original and that WF isn't. I thought Logic was catchy, and that you could rock out to it, but they sounded just like a ton of other post punk bands out there at the time. WF doesn't sound like anything i've heard.
3. Listen to "In The Beginning", "The Mountain", and "Oh Shoplifter". The layers and arrangements are amazing. "It Takes Time" is also ridiculously catchy.
4. I love their new uses of percussion and how the organ is central to their new sound. I love the rotary sounds they use (that whirring sound an organ makes).
5. Yes, there are some dud songs, like "Outro". The out of tune guitar in "Baby Blues" annoys me to no end.
6. Yes, if I was in control of the band, I would have Tim sing lead again. Dave's voice works sometimes, and sometimes it doesn't
7. The new drummer Julien Blais is an upgrade from Dave's drumming.

Overall, I give WF 4 stars. But since people are giving it 1 star just because its not Logic: Part 2, I'm giving WF 5 stars to counter it :)

The Stills' first album was a work of genius--one of those rare CDs that you can play over and over again and never tire of. Now, somehow, they've managed to make a second album that is so astoundingly bad that it inspired me to write my first Amazon review. I read these other reviews here before I bought my copy and I thought these people must be fairweather fans or something and ordered it anyway. I figured their first disc was so good that even if their second wasn't half as good, it still had to be worth a few listens.

WRONG! These reviewers are not joking--this really is a turkey. I have an open mind. I listened to it a good 12 times over the course of two weeks, and did not find a single song that is more appealing than the sound of my car engine. And the flow of the album (such that it is) sure doesn't make up for the absense of any outstanding songs. This sounds like four people who wanted to be doing something else were locked in a room and told not to come out until they had recorded 12 songs.

This is not The Stills you think you like. There is no sense of melody, no interesting guitar chords, no inspiring bass line, no catchy lyrics. Releasing this under the name "The Stills" has got to be a trademark violation or something.

i came into this a bit heistent. i heard whispers and advanced talk that this album was to be much different than their first and loving their first album as many people did feared change. wow. i have lived with this album since it got leaked via soulseek 2 months ago. i'm waiting on the mail for my copy on vinyl as i type. i just took them in live last night. the album trumps their first. different sound, i'm speaking or rather typing apon the album as a whole, start to finish, the flow, the feel.

it's unfair to think of an album as being 'single' worthy. Regardless if you enjoy an album you can easliy pick out your own singles. A good rhythm section will produce sustainable listening pleasure. Just listen to the drum beat that collapses on the piano progression of "the mountain"; "destroyer" builds on a similar mould. There are little moments of magic to be found throughout the album with such lines as "your so good looking you'll turn all the men into boys" found on the slow waltz of "in the end" and the easy rhyming couplet that you wish you thought of, found on the duet with emily haines of metric fame, "baby blues" - "i'm into looks but i'm also into books"

Last night during a lull in their encore someone beside me yelled out DESTROYER! , to which Tim replied "we can't we don't have a horn section!" that would not have been a believable response in tours gone past.

i certainly don't view it as a bad thing that the band wants to explore music in all of it's forms. Big swooping B3 organ swishes & piano driven melodies makes this for a very enjoyable listen while broadening their musical pallet.

That being said, i wouldn't be saying that if they didn't have the tunes to carry it off.

I first must say that of all the post-punk bands out there and in all their infinite glory, The Still's sophmore release "Without Feathers" was probably THE one I was most anxious about. With all the Post-Punk and Nu Wave bands out there it's constantly a challenge to sort the greats from the one-hit wonders. Lyrically The Stills have always been one of the stronger Post-punkers in my book but their first album right off the bat was compared to the likes of The Strokes, Echo and The Bunnymen, and Interpol. Personally I've always thought they sounded like a merged version of The Strokes and what Spoon should sound like but that's beside the point. The Stills, although their debut was absolutely brilliant and nearly perfect, needed to make a statement with their second album. They needed to do something to set themselves away from all the constant comparisons and find their own original niche. "Without Feathers" does in fact accomplish this. Never before have I heard a band's sophmore release sound so abosolutely nothing like them and yet at the same time, exactly like them. The Stills' "Without Feathers" goes into so many different territories it's hard to decide what to compare it to (if it's at all possible).But if I had to I'd say that there is a slightly apparent Elton John/Beach Boys/White Stripes/Beck influence, and even Raveonettes particularly toward the end of the album (ironically, They mention the Raveonettes in the liner notes). Like The White Stripes "Get Behind Me Satan", The Stills don't depend too much on their guitars but rather the support of various other intstruments like a piano, horns and of course, a cowbell. And yet through it all, with all the various inspirations, The Stills have managed to make something that is utterly original and able to distinguish them. Many have criticized this album claiming that they have downright "abandoned their roots." I wouldn't necessarilly claim abandonment but rather experimentation. The Stills do sound different on "Without Feathers" but every so often you can make out some "Classic Stills". I think the best song on "Without Feathers" is "Helicopters" and The most "Logic"-sounding song is "Baby Blues" but even still they bring in a female back-up singer and it sounds like it came right out of a Raveonettes jam session. Truly I love both of The Stills' albums and it's practically impossible to compare them because they're totally different. The only con I think may be that "Without Feathers" seems, at times, too soon a record for a band that only has one other album out. At times it seems like it should be like their fourth album because it's such a stretch for them. But that's just my own minor issue. I suppose it's unfair to claim something is "too ahead of itself"...or is it? Whatever. The main point is that "Without Feathers" is a great album, ahead of itself or not, and any true Stills fan should take right to it.

I gave this album 2 stars because this is apparently the same band that produced "Logic Will Break Your Heart", although you would never know this by listening to "Without Feathers". As other people have noted, this album is infinitely different than the amazing "Logic Will Break Your Heart". I fell in love with "Logic..", and when this album came out I was first in line to pick it up.
After a thorough listen, I examined the packaging. I thought, "Did I buy the wrong cd? Dear God, please, did someone accidently place a different cd in this case?" But, to my dismay, it was The Stills. Say what you want about this album, but I don't see how anyone who really felt "Logic..." could be anything but disappointed in this album. I've tried examining it from a different angle. I've given it a "fresh listen". Nothing. I got the same feeling from this album that I got after I watching "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace". What happened to the magic, man?!

What the hell happened to The Stills?! This is proposterous! I was walking through Borders in plans of buying a new CD. And what do I see on the front stand? The Stills' new album. I was like "All right!" So I snatch it, pay for it, and go home. I pop it in my CD player KNOWING that this album will be better than Logic. I was wrong. Immediately, after hearing the first 4 seconds of the first song, I knew something was wrong. So I skip to the next track, then the next, then the next. Then I realize, this isn't the same The Stills I thought I knew. What I thought was Tim on a bad day was actually Dave(Who should've held on to his drumsticks), all of the songs are slow(Not that I don't like slow songs. I just expect The Stills to be more upbeat), they throw in a piano, and the album sounds more like hip country than alternative rock. I am very dissapointed. I don't think I've ever been this dissapointed over an album. I sure hope that The Stills get off the acid they're probably on and get sober enough to make good music the way they use to.

There were a number of albums being released this year that I could not wait to get my mits on and The Stills second full length was at the very top. Logic was an outstanding album filled with sleekness and drone that any fan of post punk would instantly fall in love with. If you loved the sound and atmosphere in Logic, I'm sorry....but you won't find it in Without Feathers. You don't believe me? Check out the first track "In the Beginning" and I'm sure you will agree that The Stills are no more for the time being.....

Theory 1:

This might be a classic example of a band producing great work as a direct result of their environment, i.e. KoRn's John Davis channeling his anguish into their self-titled debut masterpiece. Then once the band's situation completely changes (they get popular, fat, and happy), their muse is gone.

Theory 2:

They had all these years to produce great music and then they had a bunch of songs to pick and choose from for their masterpiece, "Logic Will Break Your Heart" then this horrible horrible album was put out with only a few years of work involved.

Theory 3:

Someone besides the leader in the band had an ego, so the leader of the group (usually the singer) was like, "Fine, we'll do it your way and see how it turns out." And if it sucks they can blame it on that guy. I hate that guy.

I just saw The Stills last night for the first time and I didn't know they had released a new album until they started playing. I liked the ones I knew--I didn't like any of the ones I didn't know (which was about 75% of their set.) They have good stage presence and I really loved when they played the Logic songs. I thought I would give their new songs a try so I listened to them here. If you see them live you will hear the songs on this album and they WILL sound better but...c'mon these songs still suck! An album really shouldn't have to "grow" on you to like it. If I didn't know about Logic Will Break Your Heart and I heard the samples on this album as a stand alone I would pass right on by. Here's hoping their next album (if there is one) goes in a different (but hopefully smarter) direction.