Stavesacre - "Speakeasy" (TN1140)

After 2,5 years of waiting the new Staveacre-album has finally been released. This album is a follow-up to their excellent second album Absolutes and the expectations for this new production were very high. After 2 long years of touring all over the U.S.A. they went to the studio with producer Brian Karlström and now when I hear it in my player I must say it’s worth the long waiting…

Forget everything you know about the background of the members of this band (the members have all played in other T&N-bands like Chatterbox, the Crucified, the Blamed and Focused). Forget their first two records "Friction" and "Absolutes" and BUY this cd. The cover of the album is beautiful but mysterious, just like you could expect from this band. No lyrics, no “thank-you”-lists, just 4 photos of all the members in the band and a lot of mysterious pictures are in the booklet. As for the music, you’d better just lie down in your bed and listen to this album on your headphones. The record starts off with the bombastic rock song "Minute Man". This song captures everything that Stavesacre has in his pocket. A wonderful bass-line, a great guitar-part in the chorus of the song and the admirable voice of leadsinger Mark Salomon combined with the backing-vocals in the chorus. It sounds a little bit like Third Day in their best songs.

Although the music is completely different from the bands where the members have played in before, the background of the members can still be heard. Some songs start off as hardcore songs, for example the song "Disquiet", but they are all too slow to be hard core, so it’s clear that Stavesacre have developed their own style. I always wonder how in the world it is possible that Mark Salomon is the same singer as he was in the Crucified. He just sings so well and the variety in his voice is so great that the comparison with the screaming, shouting Salomon in his Crucified-years is almost irrelevant. Anyways, the music on this album is so difficult to play that it’s sometimes even hard to stay focused while listening these songs. I listened to this record about 5 times now and the record still gets better every time I listen to it. The songs I liked best are "You Know How It Is" en "St. Eriksplan", but every song is thrilling, scary, exciting, well, just say: GREAT. The problem I had with their first two albums is totally gone now. This record never gets boring and I am sure I will listen to it for the whole next year.

"Speakeasy" represents the past, the present and the future of Tooth & Nail Records and this old, experienced band shows all the new young bands how to create an artificial rocking album. They took the time to make it, but they forfilled all expectations. Check this band out on their world tour this year to feel the Stavesacre-energy & follow all the thousands who already bought this album. And for the people who are already waiting on the next release from Stavesacre: “Keep waiting…Just a little while.. We’ll be right on time.”