Rock music doesn’t have to be big, brash, and bombastic. I know it made its name on that image, but the genre has been around a long time, so it’s understandably grown into something more mature and refined. And this more sophisticated, subtle sound is largely what The Stray Lions second long player, Small Talk in Stereo, offers.
Take the opener, ‘Someplace Else,’ a serene blend of softer rock attitudes and delicate infectiousness, with just a hint of more rock-and-roll moves in some of the drum fills and guitar work: a brilliant tone setter and a great song. And if ‘Roll On’ expands the sound by broadening the sonics rather than hitting harder, ‘Baby’s Got A Gun’ is the sound of the band throwing a curveball – a raw and raucous garage-rock salvo of squalling guitars and driving groove, perhaps just saying, we’ve got the basic chops down; making a more elegant brand of rock and roll is definitely a deliberate choice.
‘Pacific Blue,’ by contrast, owes much to the delicacy and fragile vocals of Simon and Garfunkel at their most ethereal; ‘Call Your Name’ sits equidistant between the band’s sonic urges, a west-coast-infused chilled pop-rocker and the appropriately named ‘Last Waltz’ sees the album out with a wonderfully dynamic blend of haze and harmony, mellifluous melody and big beats.
Atmosphere and evocation, emotion and cinematics are the name of the game here; I mean, they can kick ass with the best of them when they choose, but mainly The Stray Lions revel in something more considered and well-constructed than the usual foot-on-the-monitor brashness. Yes, rock and roll has come a long way.
