The 60's Recycled...
First song 'Turn The World Around' sounds like a Beatles-esque Oasis ballad sung by Bob Dylan. There's a brief but effective horn blast backed with blues-style gospel backing singers in the chorus, which propels the song by adding more depth. 'Soon Come' could've been a cover of a 50's blues number and is as timeless as it is good.
There is a real addictive feel to the album that with each play grows stronger, and although there are many influences the acoustic and slightly folksy feel never becomes neither tiresome nor repetitive. 'Just Enouth Love' has a saxophone in a song that has no right to be there - but works. 'I will Journey Home' is an older sounding Beach Boys when they realised that singing about bushy blond hairdos, and riding the perfect waves may very well be limiting them musically.
Unfortunately 'Mountains Blue And The World Through My Window' is a nice enough song, but instrumentals have to have something extra musically to warrant being wordless, and for me, this was a pretty piano and acoustic guitar piece with a gentle drum beat that cried out for words to be added. 'Nearer Than Green' is a better example with a longer acoustic piece within a song that adds enough vocals to enhance rather than distract from the music.
We are back to Beatles/Dylan references for 'Nearer The Green', 'When The Night Falls In' and 'Bluer Than Blue', before the more original offering of 'Dolt Like You' has us nodding our heads and tapping our feet in rhythmic bliss. Last track 'You Said', with it's strings is a ballad that has more than a passing resemblance to The Verve and I wonder again why bands choose to finish an album with a slow one and not something a little more faster, but hey, what do I know huh?
There is something about The Stands that makes you overlook their heavily influenced sound, and invites you to keep listening with an open mind. I'm not a major fan of a lot of the Brit-rock drivel out there, but this deserves more airplay then any of the other musical lemmings that copy each other copying each other...