Stoop: Somewhere — Album Review

Every once in a while I wish I could just spend the day laying on the carpet, thinking about my life.

This is the perfect album to be the soundtrack for that.

Stoop is an Italian band that sings the majority of its lyrics in English, and sounds like Nine Inch Nails and Interpol had a baby and then loved it until it had really well developed feelings and was influenced by The Beatles.

The album opens with a beeping keyboard intro, before some smooth bass and roomy acoustic drums come in. Acoustic guitars and some light noodling on clean electrics follow, but nothing seems booming. Every note is played with care, and played as if no one wants to break a string or scratch a skin.

Each song paints with muted colours, and only grows to intensity on a couple of tracks, like The Seed and Somewhere. Drums carry these tracks, letting the music wash behind while the drummer dances in front. The song Antwerp even has tabla drums and sound somewhat like something off of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, complete with muted trumpets.

The singer of Stoop never sounds like he is pushing his voice, with just a slight rasp to his low tenor. He sounds a hint like David Usher.

The whole album has ticks and beeps and strange keyboard sounds coupled with smooth instruments. Many of the songs feel like structured jam tracks, with instruments added organically. It works, with every song wanting to put you on the floor. Not to dance, but to think. It’s not that the songs are boring, it’s because they wash you away.

Listen if you like laying in the sun on summer days, not caring about what a song has to say.