When a band as young and as talented as Still Life Still make a record as swarming yet precise as Girls Come Too, one can’t help but wonder: have I wasted too many years of my life? It’s not as if the Toronto-bred five-piece make anti-climatic tunes that lend themselves to suicide or anything as sombre; it’s actually the opposite. With Girls Come Too, these young dudes (With a collective age somewhere around 100) have managed to bypass so many of the hiccups young bands endure on debut records, thanks to their blatant talent.
It’s no surprise that Girls Come Too was produced by Kevin Drew and Martin Kinack, part of the Broken Social Scene braintrust. The potent ambience that one usually hears on BSS records features prominently. “Planets” takes detailed notes from BSS’s atmospheric, chamber-pop stylings yet there’s something different here. Something fresh. The sound of a band who’s yet to become jaded by the scene which will ultimately embrace or denigrate them. If anything, Still Life Still will head into the critical fray together. The spacey, constantly uplifting “Flowers and A Wreath” wreaks of a collective conscious.
It’s a punch to the head, but there’s still five young dudes punching together. Never is this collective ethos more apparent than on “Danse Cave,” a raucous, rollicking fist-in-the-air number with a beautiful breaks. Lyrically, Still Life Still might get pigeonholed as being a little naive, but as the anxious power of “Danse Cave” proves, it’s really hard to give a shit. Without youth and youthful anxiety, you have no rock and roll to begin with.
Girls Come Too lays it all out on the table. It’s a record of highs and lows and the friendship that drags one out of said lows. With stunning production, it’s an impressive debut from a band that is clearly on the rise.
By Joshua Kloke
[Rating: 4/5]
