STOOR-Demo Album CD
After a few minor hiccups getting this to me in a format that I could sort out, I'm now hoping that this is what the band wanted me to review, so here goes....
Stoor are a Dundee band who've been around for aeons and are arguably the best kept secret on the scene – not exactly what you'd call a “high profile” band. Things start with “Aye No” and it's like a cross between Dundee's Hennisi and Fife's Root System, in the sense that it has the riffs and passion of the former with the commerciality and memorability of the latter. It's neither rock nor ska, but more some strong yet flowing hybrid of the two that works its way into your pretty well straight away and refuses to leave, so that, even at the end of the 9 tracks that follow it, you're still singing the blessed thing in your head – “weird pop” of the highest order!! “Hold That Thought” strikes me as some kind of more modern cross between seventies song-based Eno and '80's unorthodox Talking Heads spliced together to produce a song with dramatic drumming, a memorable hook to the song, stirring guitar figures, rhythmic and arranged twists and turns and a generally driving sound that crashes down and falls, rises then crashes down once more, strangely hypnotic and quite powerful. “Theme From Stoor”, as you might have guessed, is an instrumental that sounds more like a modern take on a cross between Duane Eddy and Television, while “Secret World Of Cement” is a similarly short (just under three minutes) instrumental that's faster and more like something that might have been an introduction to seventies TV series such as “Hawaii 5-0” or “Starsky & Hutch”, powered by shining lead guitars and driving rhythms. “Hold On” definitely goes for Talking Heads territories, only the raw kind as evinced on the debut album, laced with the intensity of Dundee legends Hennisi and hints of seventies Family along the way as a powerful and brooding track fires up. “Pain” is another hybrid of Eno and Talking Heads delivered in a Scottish indie stylee, quite fast-paced, quite addictive, even if it hasn't got what you'd call any discernible chorus, and a rather fine cascading arrangement fuelled by wah wah guitar, lead guitar breaks and undercurrents of snarling guitar riffing, all propelled by dramatic and forceful rhythm section work as the vocalist dives and soars through the cyclical song arrangement. “Bathyscope” is a more powerful, longer (over five minutes) guitars-driven instrumental, dirtier than before, still relatively twangy, but altogether darker and more forceful. “Devil Rides Out” is a fast and furious number that moves through rock to almost indie barber-shop quartet harmonies via a hail of guitars raining down and punishing beats as the Byrne-esque vocal flies alongside. “Open The Box” is more sedate and funkier, still led by a neat sea of lead guitars, and decidedly in early Talking Heads vein. Finally we have “Sure Beats Me”, just over two and a half minutes of electrifying electric guitars-driven indie-pop, again instrumental, and once more echoing sixties twang with seventies TV soundtracks as the guitars veritably light up your life. In essence then, something very different from a contemporary Scottish indie band who are definitely out in a world of their own making, but the results are amazingly satisfying and bizarrely addictive.