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The Stills

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: The Stills take you behind the scenes of their new album! Check back here every day this week for a new video clip of the band explaining a different track off Without Feathers.

Today’s track: “Halo the Harpoons” Watch | Download (right-click-save-as) Yesterday’s track: “Oh Shoplifter” Watch | Download (right-click-save-as) Tuesday’s track: “Helicopters” Watch | Download (right-click-save-as) Monday’s track: “The Mountain” Watch | Download (right-click-save-as)

Visit The Tripwire for more behind the scenes clips with the Stills.

“Hope,” Emily Dickinson once wrote, “is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul.” With this in mind, the title of the Stills’ second record should give some indication of where the band’s heads are at these days. Without Feathers (out tomorrow) finds the Montreal quintet in a strange place: In September they parted ways with their lead guitar player and had to reshuffle their lineup, with former drummer Dave Hamelin moving up front on lead vocals and guitar and two new members hired to fill the void. But while intra-band relations were almost certainly strained, their new album actually doesn’t sound all that hopeless. It’s a collection of major-key guitar pop, decorated with swirling organs and a flatulent brass section.

The title, Without Feathers, is borrowed from a 1976 book by Woody Allen and, like the neurotic auteur, the Stills’ new material bears very little resemblance to the work that earned them notoriety. Even accounting for the lineup changes, the band sounds almost nothing like they did on their 2003 debut, Logic Will Break Your Heart, a dark and spacey record, rooted in the moody 1980s post-pop of the Cure and Echo and the Bunnymen. Feathers, though, recalls the upbeat pop of ’70s-era Kinks. If they really are hopeless, it’s hard to tell with all the handclaps and tambourines.

The Stills tour dates:

5/9, Kingston, ON (Elixer) 5/10, Ottawa, ON (Capital)5/11, Toronto, ON (Phoenix)5/12, Toronto, ON (Phoenix)5/13, Montreal, QC (Spectrum)5/17, Hamilton, ON (Underground)5/18, London, ON (Call the Office)6/2, Hoboken, NJ (Maxwell’s)6/3, Washington, DC (9:30 Club)6/5, Atlanta, GA (The Loft)6/6, Tampa, FL (The Orpheum)6/7, Ft. Lauderdale, FL (Culture Room)6/8, Miami, FL (Studio A)6/9, Orlando, FL (The Social)6/12, Nashville, TN (Exit/In)6/13, Louisville, KY (Headliners Music Hall)6/14, Millvale, PA (Mr. Smalls Theatre)6/15, Philadelphia, PA (The Trocadero)6/16, Cleveland Heights, OH (Grog Shop)6/18, Indianapolis, IN (Birdy’s)6/20, Lawrence, KS (The Bottleneck)6/21, St. Louis, MO (Creepy Crawl)6/22, Madison, WI (The Annex)6/24, Chicago, IL (Intonation Music Festival)6/25, Cincinnati, OH (Desdemona Festival)

The Stills official site