The singer's called John Paul Jones, (there's a Zeppelin connection), so surely this is going to be exciting? Grace was a Jeff Buckley album, (there's a kind of connection there); surely this is going to be immaculate, heartfelt, and truly spellbinding?
The truth is that Stand Still is a horribly turgid, bland piece of work. If you thought Toploader or Thirteen Senses were a good idea, then by all means go and buy this. Don't stop there though, there's a whole album of this stuff for you to check out.
Frankly I blame Radiohead for all of this. They go and make an album like The Bends and then go off and start going all unusual, but they went and left the door open for bands like this to try and make "affecting" rock music.
Whichever country Grace drive in, they always play safe and head straight down the middle of the road. What this means is that Stand Still is about as generic and obvious as it gets. With heartfelt vocals and a piano building them towards what I'm sure accountants would probably describe as "an emotional climax" Grace can't help but sound hideously predictable. As a result, any kind of emotion that might have been there is lost - emotions are, after all far from predictable.
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