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Portastatic, Portastatic Still Please Please PleaseDetails
Title: Be Still Please
Release date: 10 October, 2006
Record label: Merge Records
Single: Song For A Clock
Official website: Portastatic
Wikipedia: Portastatic
Popular Songs
New Songs
Tracklisting
1. Sour Shores
2. Black Buttons
3. I'm in Love (with Arthur Dove)
4. Sweetness and Light
5. Getting Saved
6. You Blanks
7. Like a Pearl
8. Cheers and Applause
9. Song for a Clock
Portastatic - Be Still Please
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Portastatic's second release of 2006 and ninth full-length sounds as fresh as ever. Analytically angry, melding darker imagery with indignation, Mac McCaughan also musters the wherewithal to remain hopeful. Be Still Please continues the full-on rock band sound of 2005's Bright Ideas but with more of an emphasis on the orchestration featured in McCaughan's recent soundtrack work.
BE STILL PLEASE just might be the crowning achievement. The first thing that hits you is the jaw dropping beauty of the album - the string arrangements are lush and swollen with emotion; the songs feel ready to pop, like a tick filled with awesomeness instead of blood. Just listen to the opening “Sour Shores” and let those changes wash over you - THIS is what the Left Banke was supposed to sound like! Those Left Banke records suck shit, by the way. At best three good songs! (And I’m throwing in ‘Pretty Ballerina’ - even though I hate that song – because a fair amount of people seem to think it’s passable.) Fuck that noise, Jack!
BE STILL PLEASE also features some of the best straight out pop Mac has ever whipped up – “I’m In Love (With Arthur Dove)” bounces around like ‘Born To Run’ by way of the Go-Betweens, and “You Blanks” is his most radio-ready number since “San Andreas” (or maybe even “Slack Motherfucker”, with which it shares a liberal use of the F-Bomb).
If I were clever, I’d tell you to think of BE STILL PLEASE as the introverted sister to BRIGHT IDEAS. But I’m not. So I’ll just tell you that Mac McCaughan is better than he’s ever been – the guy is on a hot streak right now that I’d chart somewhere between Mascis ‘87, Coppola ‘’74 and Dwyane Wade ’06.
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