Rest And Be Thankful - Stapleton Album Review
Stapleton
Album Review
Stapleton’s latest release is ‘Rest and Be Thankful’, the bands fourth studio album. The four piece band from Scotland have created a very light indie rock based album, with vocals parallel to fellow scot Simon Neil from Biffy Clyro. The bands album features very light instrumental work from start to finish, with track ‘Versus The Underground’ being one of the many tracks featuring long instrumental interludes.
It is no surprise that Stapleton have inspired ‘Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly’ as similarities can be drawn early on. ‘Dear Dusk’ stands out amongst the others on the album, being a much faster paced song with bouncier guitar riffs and quick yet soft drum beats. In the following track ‘Borovets’ similarities can be heard with the guitar work to Snow Patrol’s ‘Run’, although the quiet vocals lead Stapleton to shoot themselves in the foot. Towards the end of the song singers Andrew Cook and Alistair Paxon provide the noise the song lacked previously, pity it didn’t begin louder.
The re-release of popular song ‘Chez Chef ‘ features louder drums as well as dance beats used effectively. The guitar has been turned up and Stapleton seem almost a different band, appearing much more effective when not afraid to add volume to their songs. ‘Chez Chef’ could easily fit in amongst the current indie crowd, infectious bass lines contribute to a song which standouts from the album completely. ‘End and End Well’ is also faster natured too, Nico Westeijn again making strong contributions on bass.
‘Birds In Formation’ is eerily like Biffy Clyro’s ‘Machines’ track, slow based acoustic music with a dim tone to the song. The song works well with the bands slow tempo nature, and really hits home what they are attempting to do with their brand of “Heartfelt Indie”. Unfortunately the other songs fail to inspire the same as ‘Birds in Formation’ does.
The band's weakness is they rely too much on two things. They have almost background music whenever vocals are taking place, you rarely hear any distinctive drum grooves and the guitar work is frequently too mellow and becomes tedious rather quickly. The singer’s inability to digress and noise despite a good voice is hugely annoying and makes you wonder why they haven’t put more emphasis on this because it spoils a potentially good album. These are the reasons that Stapleton have failed to hit the big time despite being highly acclaimed, and until slow based indie becomes appealing to the masses again, Stapleton’s musical talents with remain dormant to many.
