On their new album, Would Things Be Different, many of The Spring Standards’ songs have that comforting familiarity of a story retold many times. But then the band will throw in an unexpected chord that adds dark clouds to an otherwise sunny moment, or pause just long enough to suggest a song is over, only to launch back into it again.
On "Bells and Whistles," sweetly sentimental acoustic guitars and piano carry a gentle vocal melody along a seemingly predictable path. Even after the vocals finish and the song picks up with steady snare hits and a meandering harmonica, the promise of an expected destination remains. In the final seconds, however, the pianos and guitars arpeggiate into a dissonant tension, layering notes too close together to rest comfortably and, like a few key details revealed at the end of a story, force you to reconsider all that came before.
"Skyline" opens the record with a ringing anthem; piano keys strike flint, guitars peal alarms. Over the verses, Heather Robb sings alone, igniting the melody with a driving urgency. When the sweet and husky voices of her bandmates join her for the chorus, their voices fuse into a raw harmony as their hands and feet crash and stomp out a burning rhythm on a drum kit split between the trio.
Fingers skitter over piano keys to introduce "Queen of the Lot." Like a cabaret chanteuse, Robb’s voice is tinged with flirtatious melancholy, toying and teasing as a high hat hisses in the background. Tension increases with each bouncing bass note on the piano until Robb releases it into the chorus. "Why not have it all? You’ve every right to take what’s not tied down,” she sings, inviting a tuba and some trumpets to march together with her in a boisterous backing refrain.