Feeder: Silent Cry
Friday, 13 Jun 2008 15:15
Feeder: Silent Cry
Echo Records, out June 16th.
In a nutshell...
Welsh rockers return with heavier soundscapes
What's it all about?
Billed as Feeder's "return to rock", Silent Cry is the band's sixth album and comes bound with high expectations. Wales' second band of rock (with the 'Phonics as the obvious first choice) carved out their music career with a string of gritty, left-of-the-middle rock tunes, such as My Perfect Day and Just a Day. From here, it is a well chartered story. With the unexpected death of their drummer Jon Lee the band's music took a turn for the sombre and left fans complaining that Feeder was sounding less grunge-inspired and with hits like Tumble and Fall more like Snow Patrol with each album. Silent Cry then is a defiant call out to those sorrow-snubbing musos who have been willing the band to give them something worth putting back in their cd player, player, player...
Who's it by?
Feeder are a Welsh trio who formed in the music mecca of Newport, which has also spawned sonic wonders such as bling massif Goldie Lookin Chain. The band is ladies' favourite Grant Nichols (lead singer), Taka Hirose (bass) and Mark Richardson (drums). The lads are no spring chickens with Nichols now entering his 41st year but still know how to make crowds mosh when they play live. Their first album Polythene came out in 1997, when Nirvana-mania was prevalent in rock circles. However, Echo Park was their breakthrough disc bringing them commercial success and critical acclaim.
As an example...
"Nothing left, nothing left to me, solitude, emptiness, defeat." –Miss You
"What do you think about miracles?/Miracles are somethings you dream about/We are looking for a new way out." – We are the People
Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys
No rock 'n' roll borders are likely to move as a result of this musical offering. However, Feeder has never been a band on the frontiers of change. Their music has always been about good tunes and guitars. Still stranded somewhere between NME and Kerrang, this album is a good half-way house for those who consider themselves too cool for Coldplay but value their ears too much to invest in Rage Against the Machine.
What the others say
"Since Silent Cry... is unlikely to transform [Feeder] into the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Snow Patrol - the bands against whom you suspect they measure themselves. It will almost certainly bag them a few more hit singles." – Caroline Sullivan, Guardian
"Light years ahead of the dreary sludge their material after Lee's suicide had come to represent, and in the closing, Black Holes And Revelations-styled Sonorous contains their most audacious four minutes to date... [A] record that Feeder should be proud of." – Dom Gourlay, Drowned in Sound.
So is it any good?
I am eternally suspicious of albums that present their first single as their first track – it suggests a impending downward spiral of musical quality.
Lead single We Are The People introduces Silent Cry to eager ears and does a good job. Which is exactly the problem – it is a solid single that introduces a stable album, which would have been better entitled Feeder By Numbers.
From the garage rock sounds of Tracing Lines to the more grunge-tinged Who's the Enemy, the album fails to soar to any heady heights that will succeed in getting pulses racing.
And when a listener finds themself wishing that track three Miss You was a live lounge-esque interpretation of the Blink 182 piece of musical genius of the same name, you know something is amiss.
However, the album's final track Sonorous is a cut above the rest of the album and something that will no doubt sound great live. It is an atmospheric, rousing piece of up-beat rock that brings back memories of a time when Feeder weren't just reliable, they were dynamite.
In fact, the album's saving grace is that it is cleverly bookended by the best tracks, giving the listener the impression it started well and ended on an up note, therefore that fading memory of being bored halfway through must be wrong. Trust me – it wasn't.
6/10
Jenni Marsh
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