Here is a record that brought me closer to two brilliant creative minds who I have long admired. I was lucky to have caught on to the incredible music of STILL all the way back in 2017 when I reviewed their first demo release Karin. I’ve followed the band ever since and they’ve grown with every release, so working closely with them has been an absolute pleasure. The same goes for Joe Clayton, whose band Pijn I’ve loved since catching their second ever gig supporting Pelican in Manchester. I’ve also been a visitor to Joe’s recording haven No Studio many times (recording there with Agvirre and Catafalque). Joe is one of the busiest people I know, always immersing himself into brilliant creative projects, touring and attending gigs, but now he has embarked on a brave new venture by starting his own record label Floodlit Recordings, on which A Theft has been released – with beautiful screen-printed, homemade packaging to boot.
A Theft is something really, truly special and I knew from the very first listen that this was going to turn heads. Not only is A Theft the most brutal, harrowing and claustrophobic release I’ve heard in 2024, but it’s also so powerful, thought provoking and bravely vulnerable. This very personal record channels sudden loss, immense grief and inner torment. A Theft is truly a work of art that isn’t afraid to make listeners feel discomfort and be challenged. I also think the album is a true collaboration. It’s not only STILL’s greatest work, but it might just be Joe’s finest venture as a sound engineer and producer. STILL’s brilliant debut was much more eclectic, varied and lengthier than A Theft, yet what makes this sophomore record such a triumph is just as much in what isn’t heard than what is heard. STILL and Joe have stripped away everything that isn’t absolutely essential, resulting in a much leaner, rawer, concise and more focused effort. It only makes the brutality, the noise, the tension, the atmosphere and the sound design that bursts across this album even more effective. A Theft is an absolute stranglehold of a record. One that completely takes you over. An experience.
ACCOLADES
“It encompasses you in such a way that it blocks out everything… All your emotions, all your thoughts, all your feelings just disappear, and you just exist in the music.”
~ 5/5 Metal Epidemic
“A Theft is certainly not for the casual listener, but for those who want their music to challenge them and to reflect the darker and more painful realities of life and death, it is certainly going to turn a few heads.”
~ 9/10 Distorted Sound Magazine
“Outwardly brutal and inwardly tortured in equal measure… A claustrophobic release of pain, fury and total discontent that serves as the linchpin of STILL’s sound.”
~ Noizze
FROM THE PRESS KIT
An ominous drone beckons you in the empty, cold darkness. A faint beacon of light glimmers through the harsh fog. A distress siren screams out, pained and tormented as instruments of distress bellow into life. The path you came from is now a tangled web of thorns. With no way to turn back, you become ensnared within the bleak, suffocating dissonance of STILL.
This is the sound and immense grip of A Theft. A record you don’t just play, but get swept away into it’s harrowing tide. Across a lean 35 minute runtime, the Hull based trio concentrate all their ferocity, intensity and emotional wrought into their most direct and sharply honed set of songs to date. A lesson in mounting eye-watering tension punctuated with a throughline of discordance and anxiety-ridden freefall. A true amalgam of extreme and post metal subgenres, STILL brew together savage contemporary black metal, sludgy atmospheric tones, and a shifting high-velocity impact akin to powerviolence, across non-linear avant structures laced with experimental subtleties and blossoming textured nuance. After the wide acclaim of their abstract debut full-length titled { }, STILL have reduced to a trio, with guitarist Fraser Briggs and drummer Jack Green sharing vocal duties. Following their debut and multiple tours across the UK, Still have worked on these sonic maelstroms across a two year period, but were blindsided by personal trauma in the midst of their artistic journey – The sudden loss of Fraser Briggs’ father.
A true exercise in catharsis, STILL build on the insidious success of { } with towers of palpable grief rooted in the injustice of having life taken out of one’s hands. This hugely affecting and sudden change has turned and refocused STILL to create a more blunt and direct outpouring. A Theft is a record that sounds haunted, with every fibre of hurt, confusion, anger, betrayal, and sorrow clawing at the seams of these eight songs. Though A Theft is undoubtedly challenging, uncomfortable and fully confrontational, through all of its pain and horror, this record stands as a memento to loss and to unwavering devotion. Like the album’s finale, these feelings of closure remain unresolved, yet STILL offer a small branch of comfort, an acceptance in their internal processing, and the strength for us all to keep moving forwards towards the faint light on the horizon.
Released on November 15th through Floodlit Recordings on Vinyl, CD, Cassette and Digital formats.
PR TRAIL 