SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: STILL CORNERS – THE LAST EXIT

Still Corners
The Last Exit
Wrecking Light Records

Like a long drive through barren desert red rock canyons in a vintage ragtop, even at night the dwindling heat invades the nostrils and you can almost taste the dust laced humidity. It parches the tongue but the Jim Beam bottle at your side quenches you. Alone on this road, for a shit and giggle you shut off the headlamps, close your eyes, and pick up speed just to break the monotony and maybe feel as though you hardly exist at all.

The Last Exit is the fifth album from British duo Still Corners, and it follows in the vein of dusty, darkened, atmospheric pop. The production is so perfectly soft at the edges that it might sometimes feel as if these songs are bleeding out of the tired old speakers of a rest stop jukebox in a nowhere town, the old barstool crew looking into their black coffee and thinking of nothing in particular.

Tessa Murray’s vocals bring to my mind that same feeling when hearing Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval for the first time. Syrupy and “lazy” like a hot August night, while guitarist Greg Hughes is perfectly accompanying with his loosey goosey yet crisp layered playing style.

“Crying” sounds like it spent a bit too much money at the bar and needs to trundle home but a lovely lass who is just as melancholy just sashayed her way over to you and suggests that maybe you buy a round and talk some shit.

“White Sands” gives me a vibe of being chased by ghosts through a neon city. The culture shock after spending weeks in the middle of nowhere is palpable as the bright lights blur into starbursts through the rain spattered windshield, city walkers with their gaze cast to the ground, moving and talking too fast. This is why you escaped in the first place.

By the end of the album we’ve made our way into the “Old Arcade” which slyly plays out like the closing of a book. Staring at your calloused hands you reflect on your experiences and the people you’ve met, the ghosts cast adrift, the miles cast behind us, the future ahead. You close your tired eyes just to break the monotony and maybe feel that this has all been a dream and that you hardly exist at all.

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