Press releases are an evil necessity, but some are better than others. Stillman's press release claims that he is a virtuoso musician and producer in the same class as Elliott Smith and Nick Drake. This admittedly made me sit up and listen, but eventually just led to disappointment.
Stillman is the solo work of Chaz Craik, who apparantly studied Classics at Oxford University. OK, nothing necessarily wrong with that, but this is pop music for god's sake - don't go advertising the fact that you're smarter than the rest of us! Chaz has a gravelly voice which reminds me of the guy from the Stereophonics, and to be honest I find it faintly irritating, which doesn't help.
Stillman aren't bad, they just aren't earth-shatteringly good. On the production side, its a well produced EP but certainly no "Closer"-style genius here or Fall-type bending of the rules. The songs are decent too, but again nothing to make you jump out of your seat and run to the stereo to put it on again.
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"Weightless" is probably the best, a song about leaving this decrepid world of ours behind, and captures a nice Major-Tom type spacey feel. "The Worst is Over" sounds like its about a working-class woman reaching retirement age and realising she's been used up and spat out by the system - but then again, I could be wrong, because the press release doesn't tell me anything about the songs, it just tells me how great Stillman are. Sadly, on this evidence I have to disagree.
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