Chris Stills – Chris Stills
(2006)

Review by Max Roach

Chris Stills is a solo artist with a great gift reminiscent of Jeff Buckley, a soft and beautiful but prominent voice. And with his latest effort, this Buckley of the new generation is certain to find some new fans.

Stills manages to tie in a lot of his roots throughout the album with numerous French songs accompanying his own take on the more traditional acoustic blues/rock/folk, and it works.

With quite a significant bit of musical heritage behind him (Stephen Stills of Crosby, Stills, and Nash… and Young) and best-selling French artist Veronique Sanson, its no surprise that Stills has such a great skill, not just vocally but with such a varied instrumental ability that was no doubt taught to him by his parents and roadies throughout his youth.

Spending a lot of his youth in France after his parents split he moved to America where he roadied for his dad and started up his own band with Leonard Cohen’s son, Adam, but then hooked up with Atlantic records which led to his first release in 1998, "100 Year Thing".

His new album, returning almost eight years later, has strong folk tones to a lot of it, but again with that Jeff Buckley feel (which is no surprise considering the drums on this album were performed by Jeff Buckley's former drummer, Matt Johnson).

It's an extremely well produced and recorded album, although at times seems to struggle to stand out against the plethora of other solo acts, which is unfortunate with the obvious talent and potential you can experience with songs like Say My Last Good Bye and Landslide.

Stills' intriguing songwriting style is certain to capture the curiosity of many as this is one of those albums that you wish would be listened to, more than talked about.

The French version of Fanny (a hidden track at the end of the album) strikes a smile across my face every time I hear it, although paying respect to his father’s music in his mother’s language comes across quite oddly when I think about it.

It's adult contempory by the numbers - so if you've got Buckley, John Mayer, Ronan Keating or Bernard Fanning on high rotation in your CD player, this might just do the trick.

RATING: 3 out of 5