The Stairs, On Sleep Lab

reviewed by dave heaton

So long / we were undoubtedly strong..."

The Stairs' On Sleep Lab is their second album, and their last. Does the fact that they've broken up make you less interested in hearing them? I realize that you want to be up on the newest-latest, the next cool band. The Stairs might be a ghost now, not the next big thing, but don't ignore them for that. If you do, it'll be your loss. On Sleep Lab is a rich and adventurous rock n' roll epic - not in length, necesarily, but in feeling. It's packed with ideas, with feelings, with great melodies and harmonies. The tone shifts from forceful to relaxed, from storms to daydreams, and does it naturally, giving the overall album the aura of a journey. The group's sound involves not just complicated, melodic, very driven homegrown rock n' roll, but also psychedelic space-trips, poetry-driven country rock (note that they once recorded their own rendition of the Silver Jews' entire The Natural Bridge album), around puzzles around playfully built from the wreckage of rock n' roll archetypes.

I've been reading books / and I've got ten shelves left / words will kill me slowly..."

On Sleep Lab comes off like an engaging mystery, filled with hidden corners, thoughts, and events. Their lyrics are remarkably detailed, suggestive of so much at once, and (like the best) leaving room for listener interpretation. Dreams, inner conversations, what's going on inside other people's brains make up a common theme, along with, appropriately enough, farewells, death, and moving on. If the Stairs were big big stars, some of these lyrics, and song titles like "Don't Abandon Your Band", would be analyzed for what they say about the band's break-up. But these are real people here, also real artists, whose songs are about more than themselves - if some lyrics do resonate in that way, they also resonate in hundreds of more rewarding ways at the same time. The mood of their music does at times feel elegaic, and concerned with change. Amidst the sometimes dark mood, the light-in-tone "Oh! Sunday Morning" at first feels like a ray of hope, a portrait of the perfect life, but as it proceeds you realize the narrator's likely dead, or in the middle of dying - so appropriate, for an album where every song feels like an enigma, where nothing is completely simple ("Welcome to Confusion", one song title proclaims).

Deep in the woods / in some tiny grove / I will share with you my treasure trove..."

On Sleep Lab feels both like an undiscovered rock classic, written about in invisible ink on the pages of a well-worn issue of Rolling Stone, and like the magical, seldom-heard output of those mysterious next-door neighbors who seem to spend a lot of time in the basement. It feels like a secret...one that's exciting to know but also in dire need of being spread around.

{www.thestairs.com}