“ATROCITIES” – Download & streaming single – STOOR

The world sinks into a post-apocalyptic nightmare while we dance among the smoldering ruins of our former civilization. Dundee quartet, STOOR,may well still be the best band you have never heard but they are set to unleash their second album, Fleam, upon the world on March 29TH. STOOR are a band without any hype or industry buzz surrounding them, who let the music and lyrics stand up and out for themselves. As one lyric on Fleam advises there is, ‘no snake oil in our cabinets’. So far, so ‘we just let the music speak for itself, if anyone else likes it it’s a bonus’. Forget that though, STOOR and Fleam both demand and deserve your attention. On record and live, STOOR are no delicate, shy retiring wallflowers. Fleam reveals itself to be a robust, melodic and playful record. The gorgeous tunes, jagged guitars and solid rhythms are a delight but in the lyrics there lurks a darkness. The songs contained here are catchy and fierce, you can dance to them but the lyrics form a fine critique of the crazy, mixed up world we currently live in today. The title of the album refers to a tool used for bloodletting that harks back to Anglo-Saxon times and on songs such as ‘Atrocities’, ‘Pain’ and ‘Chivers’, there is serious message inherent in the narrative that runs throughout Fleam. In an age where bands and musicians seem all too often to have little to say about the wider world STOOR are engaged in a reckoning of sorts, a kind of musical bloodletting. This isn’t to say that Fleam is in anyway a preachy, polemical record. Far from it. There’s a mordant wit to STOOR, a dark, surreal humour. STOOR draw upon the idea of post-punk, driving, inventive tunes and a sly, witty critique of the world. It’s a weird and wonderful world to be sure, where we travel to far flung places such as Iraq or down to the woods where the people are a little peculiar and carry pointy sticks. And as the words, images and stories keep coming so do the wonderfully inventive riffs and melodies. Anyway, why are you reading this? Why am I writing this? Other than the fact that I believe this here album is a fine, fine record deserving of your ears. Someone once said that writing about music was like dancing to architecture. Well, here it is, the house that STOOR built. Explore its strange but enticing rooms, marvel at the infrastructure. And dance. Dance with pure unbridled joy.