The Stairs - ‘On Sleep Lab’ (Summer Is Loaded Music) Released 01/06/05

 

 

For a band that have announced they are splitting (albeit totally amicably, to pursue separate projects in different parts of their native USA), this is an impressing offering. Bands putting out debut albums on the threshold of their careers would be hard put to rival this joyous plethora of idiosyncratic sounds from Massachusetts fivepiece the Stairs.

From the kooky opening lines of ‘Don’t Abandon Your Band’ (interesting choice of words given the situation), you just know that this isn’t going to be one of those run-of-the-mill, commerce-hungry offerings that so pollute the soundwaves. But weird is by no means the limitation of this group’s talent, as the beautifully poignant ‘Welcome to the Confusion’ quickly establishes; "Welcome to the trainline/To the end of the line/To the end of the rope/That is strangling the hope/that is mangling your mind".

‘These Damn Hands’ sees the band temporarily venture onto slightly more up-tempo pop-punk grounds, but even here the skewed vocals and screwball lyrics; "Who put the crow in the president’s bed?" ensure that the leftfield approach is not lost, and before the song is half-over it’s taking you into different territory, slowing right down to become a soporific dirge wallowing in the miseries of social exclusion and accompanying frustration.

But it’s midway through the album that the Stairs really hit their purple patch, starting with the addictive groove of the awesomely crafted ‘Not Sorry’, which sees atmospheric verses build perfectly into the kind of chorus you’d need to be dumb not to sing along to. They follow this up with the mournful ‘The Psychic’s Wrong Again’ ("Our cargo is human/That’s why the lights are dim") and the rousing feelgood acoustic ditty ‘Oh! Sunday Morning’, before remorselessly tugging at the heartstrings once again with the melancholy ‘Fireflies’. Apparently not ignorant to the importance of track order, they bring us out of our stupor of infinite sadness with ‘Bug Hospital’ a White-Stripes-style electric stomper that would have Jack sullenly nodding in approval.

The whole album shows a gift for songwriting that is both distinctive and catchy, but the overall tone remains refreshingly unpretentious, and certainly isn’t overproduced. Given this, it’s a shame the Stairs are separating, though guitarist/singer Ryan Walsh has said: “If we all end up back in the same state a few years down the line we’re certain that we’ll pick up where we left off.” Here’s hoping.