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Album Review
by SashaS
3-5-2005
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| Still Remains: 'Of Love and Lunacy' |
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Still Remains: 'Of Love And Lunacy '
(Roadrunner)
Still Remains: between a boulder and a hard pledge
As another day of troubled living breaks, every possible escape route is explored to counter the effect and erase the foul taste. Music, intoxicants [legal or otherwise], jogging, soap-watching… The best way to shake off any feelings of political claustrophobia [the election bull!], paranoia and social malaise, we find, is a blast, or few, of Still Remains’ album ‘Of Love And Lunacy’.
From the opening chords of ‘To Live And Die in Fire’ it is an assault like being kissed by lips of reinforced concrete, somewhat related to Killswitch Engage's wallop. Although there is also an echo of Foo Fighters at their most aggressive, during the mini-breaks that shine melodiously, this is noisenik’s heaven. ‘The Worst is Yet To Come’ sounds like Six Riders of The Apocalypse [counting Bush and Blair alongside the mythological quartet] emerge from the speakers to annihilate the reality.
Although you think it can’t get any heavier when ‘In Place of Hope’ bursts with flames that incinerate everything it its path. Amidst all the epic sonic eruptions we get a beautiful piano motif on ‘White Walls’; the tempo hardly ever lets up and even gently-titled ‘Cherished’ kicks like a take-off. There is moment of respite, about one minute worth of, on the atmospheric piano driven ‘With What You Have’.
Still Remains hail from Grand Rapids, Michigan - a compact town that stands in the shadows of Detroit Rock City and the Motor Town’s hallowed Rock’n’Roll heritage - and are happy to acknowledge the giants before but are dead keen to take it further, into fresher and new directions… ‘Of Love And Lunacy’ is not a conceptual album but there is a theme uniting songs, artwork and the in-between booklet.
“When I was writing this album,” front man T.J. Miller explains, “I was going through phrases of happiness and severe hurting. I wrote what I was feeling and the words love and lunacy best represent those emotions. The colours in the two lines of people on the cover reflect ‘love’ and ‘lunacy’, hence the name of the album.”
TJ is augmented by A.J. Barrette (drums), Evan Wiley (bass), Jordan Whelan (guitars) and Zach Roth (keyboards) for a debut album that invades your attention from the riff off!
8/10
*
Still Remains are in the UK as part of the Roadrage tour with Trivium and 3 Inches Of Blood and have already visited Wolverhampton [Wulfrun, 01 May] and Liverpool [University, 02 May].
The remaining dates:
03 May - Academy 3, Manchester
04 May - Garage, Glasgow
05 May - Barfly, Cardiff
10 May - Cockpit, Leeds
11 May - Rock City, Nottingham
12 May - Sugarmill, Stoke
13 May - Zodiac, Oxford
14 May - Concorde 2, Brighton
15 May - Arts Centre, Colchester
17 May - Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
18 May - Garage, London
SashaS
3-5-2005
Still Remains’ album ‘Of Love And Lunacy’ is released 02 May 2005 by Roadrunner
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