Faun Rec.
The Steals : Static Kingdom (US,2009)****
I had to come back to the releases before I was able to describe the music well. Perhaps the newest release is the best starter. The music very much is a combination of the creation of atmospheres with calm, nearly shoegaze elements built around the at times pop minded, acoustic flavoured songs of the main singer with ethereal voice, with some folk flavoured origins now and then in them. The singer's voice is well mixed to the front with subtle worked out sound qualities in the voice and sometimes with some quiet voice overdubs. On track one and two there has been taken care for nearly psychedelic emotional landscapes on guitars, keyboard textures and drumming (1), or just kind of keyboard-based loops (2). “The Weight” (after this) gives most focus to the slightly breathy voice (with doubled overdubbed voice arrangements) and song with acoustic pickings, with only some keyboard droning chords to it. Further on in the song, in the instrumental passage, there are some vocal textures with mellotron and a drum rhythm added to the acoustic guitar mood. The distinctive acoustic guitar playing and song lead of “Dead Flame Rising” has something of American/English folk with the association of its interesting guitar music history. The accompaniment on “Stay In Silence” creates an ambient atmosphere with rhythm, the voice being carried into the ethereal side of the musical landscape. The repetition from inside is slightly hypnotic, like a spinning dance with a certain inner emotional tension. Also here has been taken care of another longer instrumental passage with some electric and well packed inside guitar mood solo. Here I am reminded of some better bands from the 80s (early Cocteau Twins perhaps, but there must be better associations). “Golden” returns the mood back to the song, with an acoustic guitar picking rhythm, ethereal breathy voice arrangements to the song, subtle texturing and arranged elements of amplified guitar and some keyboards, in an extremely moody sense living on the rhythm pulse of the repetitive picking bass line. Also here, an instrumental jam with some extra slow, emotional electric guitar is embedded in it, and here also, a long afterlooped vibration of arrangements. A song which comes out a bit better lyrically is “Borderlines”, with focused emotion to the lyrics, and only an amplified picking and voice at first (and some ethereal vocal arrangements), before the songs increases tension a bit with the background of keyboard and electric drones swelling up the emotion underneath just a little bit. Also for the last track, “All Coming Back”, the backing arrangements first are at first nearly like an atmosphere, an aura to the song. Then slowly some rhythm is set to it. The latest track lives on a slow rhythm and texturing elements, like a nice shoegaze ending of this album.
