Fairly Uninspiring Indie Covers
Contemporary artists you've never heard of covering noisy Indie "classics" by some other bands that you've never heard of, this is going to be fun…
But luckily, Andrew Kenny's cover of Spiritualized's 'Angel Sigh' gets the album off to a relatively pleasant start. The sound of fingers sliding on the strings gives a beautiful sense of intimacy to this pretty song, while Kenny's luscious, breathy vocals make it sound as fragile as its title suggests. Following on, Windermere's 'Coast Is Clear', begins with atmospheric, cold piano and is infused with a good, soulful melody before being brought to a close by muffled electric guitar. But Amusement Parks On Fire are the first to really pick up the pace with the more rocking, angst driven punch of My Bloody Valentine's 'You Made Me Realize'. Its catchy melody disappears momentarily as the track soars to its atmospheric climax, but returns with a heavy guitar sound and crashing drums.
After the Idlewild-esque melody of Ariel's 'Blowin' Cool', Echo Orbiter offer an overdue change of tone with the up tempo dance beats and trippy cosmic feel of 'Never Click'. Sadly the next few tracks descend into an unexciting, uninspiring blur, until Hinterland (though similarly undynamic) offers a more catchy and singable track with the sugary female vocals of 'For Love'. But thankfully the whole compilation is saved (well, prevented from being wholly uninspiring) by the much more energetic and believable punch of The Feel Good Conspiracy's 'Son Of Mustang Ford'. Similarly, The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa continues the turnaround with their take on Telescopes' 'The Perfect Needle', combining a stripped down sound with fantastically sultry, sexy vocals.
Although, on the whole, 'Never Lose That Feeling' was much better than the concept first suggested it might be, with one or two of the tracks proving to be real gems, many of the long, uninspiring tracks here will simply pass by unnoticed. If you're a fan of contemporary or arty Indie types then there's every chance that listening to this album might help to you discover your new favourite band, but if not, it's probably one album not to put on your Christmas list.