Review Summary: A bow is useless, without a strong—sturdy pair of hands to aim it.
On paper, I should love Stolas, I really should, but unfortunately that isn't the case. If you've listened to any of the following bands: A Lot Like Birds, Dance Gavin Dance, The Fall of Troy, than you'll defiantly be familiar with this type of sound/genre. Now it wouldn't be fair of me to say that the band, excluding the vocals, does anything particularly wrong. The instrumentation is impressive—jaw-dropping at times, with various soundscapes just littering this thing. "Talented" is easily a label you could stick on the bands report card, but talent is less the issue, more over is "Direction".
A story essentially is of three parts, the beginning, middle, and the end. A story is difficult to appreciate after it has lost, even one of these parts; Stolas have succeeded in crafting only, the beginning, and the ending of their songs. The spastic nature of this "LP", comes off as very loosely sewn—and even incomplete. The way that the songs move from ferocious, to calming, to anthemic feels so brittle in its conjunction, that the songs become merely a collage of "cool ideas" that never had any actual relation to one another to begin with. Now this sort of, "schizophrenic" song writing has been done many of times before, succeeding at that, but it doesn't feel like Stolas had complete control of their work. Not enough elaboration on each section, ends up leaving the songs feeling dull, even with their craziness, as if the band spread themselves a little too thin.
The vocals are pretty awful. Hate to put it that bluntly, but the majority of time, an unusually whiny–harsh scream is used, which is extremely grating after awhile. The lyrics are just as disappointing, with very faux pau, philosophical topics, that imitate actually interesting ones. It also doesn't help, that though the guest feature list is a highlight, it shows how much the band needed to resort to "bells and whistles". I listen to "Captured Light", up to "Cory Lockwood's"—amazing chime in, then usually end up stopping the song.
Stolas are a sharp arrow, with a strong, sturdy bow, but they lack a pair of hands that can aim them at their target (whatever that may be). Many times just feeling like a highschool student imitating their favourite band. I can't say I got anything from this record, that I couldn't have gotten from the earlier mentioned bands. Hopefully a little direction could turn these fellows into one hell of a good act, but for now, they're just a kid playing in their parents' shadow.
