The Slow Show – 'Still Life' Album Review

Tracklist:

1. Mountbatten

2. Anybody Else Inside

3. Slippin’

4. Rare Bird

5. Woven Blue

6. Blue Nights

7. Breathe

8. Blinking

9. Hey Lover

10. Who Knows

11. Weightless

This is a stylish atmospheric album with a unique vocal style that may not be for everyone but slowly but surely washes over you, enticing you in and eventually seduces you. It’s not an album to put on at a party, it is however an album to put on and sink into. It deserves, and demands, your full attention. Many of the tracks could work well in the more atmospheric moments of a film or tv series.

The themes are love, loss, and the whole gamut of emotions in between. The music is beautifully arranged and played, washing around the lyrics and allowing the songs to float along, sometimes in an almost ethereal manner. It’s not an album that makes you want to move but it is an album to sit back with a glass of whatever you prefer, close your eyes and just listen.

The vocal style at times is reminiscent of Leonard Cohen and while the songs are not quite at that level there is a distinct feel that there is talent here, talent that could continue to develop and grow into something really special and interesting. We don’t have enough true Mavericks who aren’t afraid to try something a bit different, a bit unusual, a bit less mainstream and beautiful.

The use of a female vocal in three of the tracks is perfectly judged, it introduces the right amount of juxtaposition from the lead vocal and just takes the songs in which it’s done to a new and unexpected level, I loved the beauty and the ambience that it created.

I thoroughly enjoyed this album, the sense of longing, of love lost, the emotion of the delivery, the lushness of the arrangements, it all adds up to a unique and interesting album that deserves your undivided attention.