Rarely have I come across an album so much less than the sum of its parts. The Highest Order refer to their music as 'cosmic country'. What this essentially translates to is a strange sort of muted countrygaze that no-one wanted or asked for.

From the get-go, Still Holding is littered with twanging country-y guitar licks that feel totally contrived - like they’re a band trying to make a country sound rather than a country band. What’s more, the type of country they make seems to vary from song to song, flip-flopping from earnest, twanging country to slow, strutting country and back again several times, which only seems to reflect that this 'country music' doesn’t come from a genuine place but is rather an academic exercise. This also shows in phrases like the reference to a “border town” in ‘Warm Front’ - it feels disingenuous because they’re not country types.

Strange too are the lyrics, such as ‘Hurry Down’s “Is Pluto a planet? / Are you coming home soon?”. Phrases such as these punctuating the cliches you otherwise couldn’t move for seem indicative of their having tried to force innovation. The chorus of ‘Slip Away’ - “You’ve been trying to slip away / Leaving footsteps in your way / There’s a fever washing over you / It’s just something that you used to do” - seems to sort of meander through nothingness.

It’s a shame, because, naturally, the musicianship here is good. Singer Simone Schmidt’s voice is perfectly agreeable, but throughout the album she contrives weird country habits that clearly, audibly, aren’t her own, like vocal slides up to notes in ‘Keep A Window Open’ and a strange drawl on tracks such as ‘Warm Front’. And when she does sing more naturally, it’s clear she’s simply not a country singer. The way her voice quivers a little when it’s in a lower range like in ‘Stare Down The Barrel Of Today’ hints at a sound that would be gorgeous for music that wasn’t this.

The album is also littered with seemingly interminable instrumentals, with practically every song wandering off at some point for yet another solo with very little musical interest whatsoever. The worst example of this is to be found in ‘Keep A Window Open’, a six-minute-50 second song of which three-and-a-half minutes - over half the song - is an instrumental that goes absolutely nowhere and genuinely doesn’t change chord even once. Boring does not cover it. And the next track ‘Warm Front’ is instrumental too until 0.55, barely changing chord either. Later comes ‘Taking Off’ 5.35 without a single word. This abundance of unending instrumentals seems to reflect just how little they have to say as a band.

And despite the fact that they’re largely good musicians, there are musical elements, such as the harmonies in the verses of ‘I’d Ask You To Stay’, that are just terrible. The octaves too in ‘Somewhere Out Of The Way’ sound strange, muddy and clumsy. The twanging guitar effect that doesn’t change for the entire album is weird and annoying, and, once again, comes across as contrived.

It’s a shame, because it’s not like The Highest Order are remotely offensive as a band. Still Holding is just, unfortunately, one of the most boring albums I’ve ever heard.