Chris Stills: Chris Stills : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Being the offspring of a rock star does not guarantee kid-gloves treatment. The second album by singer-songwriter Chris Stills, son of Stephen Stills and French pop singer Véronique Sanson, has been in U.S.-label purgatory since its European release in 2006. He and the record deserved better. Chris is his father’s son in his one-man-band ways, stacking guitars, keyboards and vocal harmonies in “Flying High”—an archpop strut recalling Lindsey Buckingham’s hum-along weirdness for Fleetwood Mac—and the sun-kissed glide of “For You,” co-written with Ryan Adams. Vocally, Stills rides the high notes in “Landslide” like a brasher Jeff Buckley but shows off his genes with his darker, probing singing in “Sweet California” and his Topanga Canyon-cabaret sway through two French-language songs, “Demon” and “Kitty Kathy.” As a writer and stylist, Stills is still developing his own voice, and the melancholy in his songs blurs toward the end of the record. But Chris Stills comes with an ambition and grace that run in his family.