The Still City

Why does anyone play music? To feel better, to feel worse, to feel something? There are no answers, no reasonable explanations, but foolish people, beyond their better judgment, keep falling for that rock-and-roll devil anyway. Which, for the rest of us spectators, is great, because we need those breathless impulses of song just as badly in order to validate our own insecurities and triumphs. That's the aesthetic of music -- and the charm of an act like the Still City. On its debut EP, the self-recorded and self-released These Songs Are Walls, the band sweats out desperate youthful energy in six electrically exalted songs. In this City, life is a bit detached, emotions are frustrated, and the bright lights are fluorescent halos. These Songs is a Weakerthans-meets-the-North-Atlantic art-rock retrogression that is both daringly immature and fully admirable. Welcome to the City.