Given and Taken in Ink

The Stills break up

Montreal band The Stills has announced that it has broken up.  The band, comprised of Tim Fletcher (vocals and guitar), Dave Hamelin (vocals, drums, and guitar) Olivier Corbeil (bass) and Liam O'Neil (keyboards and percussion),  formed in 2000 and recorded three albums (Logic Will Break Your Heart, Without Feathers, and Oceans Will Rise) and an EP (Rememberese).  They released several singles, including "Still in Love Song," "Lola Stars and Stripes," and "Being Here."

The band's debut album, Logic Will Break Your Heart, featured a sound that fit with the new wave/post-punk revival popular during its release in 2003.  In 2006, the band made a determined shift away from that scene with its follow-up, Without Feathers, an album that replaced much of the debut's gloom with a brighter, Americana-influenced sound.  The band's third album, Oceans Will Rise, was a marriage of these two divergent styles, and earned the band two Juno awards for Best New Group and Best Alternative Album in 2009.

In a review of Oceans Will Rise, I wrote that the album was "easily the Stills' most consistently strong effort to date" and that it was "the sound of a band that has finally figured out who they are."  I don't know their true reasons for splitting up, but it's a shame that they decided to call it quits just when they were beginning to come into their own.

The Stills - Rooibos/Palm Wine Drinkard