Stateless: Matilda

    Stateless fairly recent sophomore release, Matilda (Feb. 21, 2011), is a bit hit or miss for me. Started in 2002, the English group's trip-hop borders on hip-hop, with heavy bass akin to someone's car driving by blaring and shaking the entire road, when you wonder how the passengers have any hearing left, which is a style I care little for. Luckily, such implementations are left to a few tracks, and the rest reside more in the vocal focused haunting electronica background of trip-hop world. I am also drawn to intriguing harmonic uses, though, in general, they fall short of how well used they could be; because the harmonies do not develop enough past just a few interesting chords (i.e. "I'm on Fire").
    Overall, the alternative nature of this record is grungy and yet incorporates elements of clarity in its vocals that remind me of Elbow, which would have Britpop written all over it, if it contained more of a pop, less hop, sound. Clearly, Stateless is following a recent trend of more dance-like albums, not just in a club scene sense, but with waltz beats drawn from classical music; the track "I'm on Fire" (Shara Worden from My Brightest Diamond contributing vocals) is almost like a volga boat waltz, with moments of Radiohead and the simple pop song duo from the movie Once (2006). Adding strings, Romanian group the Balanescu Quartet, is a really nice touch on the later tracks on the album as well, though the quartet is not of a super high caliber (or are just not recorded very well--maybe they wanted it to sound very raw and slightly untuned, because the solo in "Song for the Outsider" is phenominal). I think Stateless had the folk aspect of the quartet in mind when they wrote songs, because there is a definite Balkin or Eastern European folk influence in some tracks, namely "Song for the Outsider", the single "Ariel" (almost a Balkin lute/guitar type instrument sound) and "I Shall Not Complain" (with accordion in the background).
    I am a huge fan of the cover art, the CD being released on the Ninja Tune label digitally with a bonus song, "Matilda", which I have not been able to hear--the rest of the album is on their MySpace here. A 2CD, 2LP physical release includes an all-instrumental version of Matilda as a b-side almost, like Rob Dougan did with Furious Angels. As a whole, the album progresses nicely from the more dance club oriented sounds to folk oriented, smoother and melodiously soothing, ending nicely with "I Shall Not Complain", as if saying: "everything may not be perfect, but I am content nonetheless".
    I have left you with "Song for the Outsider" in the MixPod, it encapsulates Matilda's overall style the best and I love the violin solo, enjoy!