Rock wonderkids Waterfront Fire have a new album to add to their resume. Stillwater Lake, their third studio album, is packed to the brim with excellent melodies, a distinct-yet-versatile sound and a tendency to surprise us with something new at every turn. The St. John’s band, who have been compared to The Tragically Hip and Paramore, seem to be well on their way to eventually, as CBC’s Jeff Liberty put it, “be in stadiums.”
Kicking off with “Wake Up,” the track starts with a slow, percussion–less build up via organ and keyboard, which gives the idea of someone slowly rising from a deep sleep (or waking up). As the noise builds more and more, it comes to an abrupt halt and is followed by an absolutely beautiful guitar melody. “Wake Up” is a first impression that perfectly showcases not only the band’s masterful notation but also the other little tricks that they have up their sleeve thanks to the organ/keyboard that beckons the listeners awake.
Following this strong opening is “Four Walled World.” This track opens with a small, 17-second rock buildup before exploding into a high-energy, guitar string-shredding maelstrom. Each verse, however, rather than keeping with the sudden burst we hear initially, winds back down to a much more relaxed episode before jumping back into powerful sounds with the chorus and then back down again to the quieter segment. The song feels like an electric storm that has two different eyes, one for each calm verse.
But one of the album’s best inclusions is the duo of “Head Full of Fumes” and “Fumes.” As one can deduce from the titles of the two tracks, they are related to each other and both do their part to tell a story. The former is a slow rock track that appears to express distress the singer feels when thinking about a person as though they were filling a hole in his life. Meanwhile, the latter, accompanied by a guitar piece as beautiful as the opening one, appears to address that his previous behaviour was detrimental to himself, and has since cut it out: “I had a head full of fumes, but now the air, it’s clear to breathe. I was running on you, but I was running, running from me.”
Elsewhere, “Ghost Town” captures perfectly the essence of such a town with its bass-heavy body and twangy chorus while “Believe” uses its chorus to take advantage of extra percussion (including a cheeky handclap) and Vessels uses a fast hat drum to provide a unique pacing.
It seems like the Newfoundland outfit can do just about anything when it comes to rock music, and Stillwater Lake’s plethora of surefire bangers is sure to wow listeners. Jeff Liberty could very well be right on this one.