The Stanley Experience is a little like watching a romantic comedy. Everything aims to please and falls where you expect. Self released through Porcupine Records, their EP couldn't be more aptly named. How anyone missed the irony beggars belief.
Everything about this record groans with boredom. From the white walled, minimal decor of the room on the cover, to the empty subject matter, pace and tuneful placidity of all five songs. This is music by musicians who've given up taking risks and have settled into what they know and what feels safe - a creative suicide.
With melodic country/folk guitars, casual drumming and a light dusting of brass, Stanley's five-piece group have been ambitiously compared to Belle and Sebastian. Hazel's vocals are smooth and relaxed but are of an all too familiar style: Norah Jones, Macey Grey, Eva Cassidy, Katie Melua - the list can go on.
After the dull first two tracks, it picks up a little. Three Words has a smiling, wistful rolling rhythm, but this is about engaging as it gets and the last track, California Boy, concludes on cliche Americana.
More happens in Waiting For Godot. Nothing To Say leaves you feeling neither happy nor sad, nor any particular mood at all, just... nothing. It lulls the listener into a state of comatose, into apathy. Stanley are a painfully accessible, celebration of mediocrity and as the EP draws to a close you sense a desperate need to check your pulse. Maybe their next release will be Something To Say?
(© Copyright 2009 Brendan Morgan)
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