Best album of this year so far...
Bit of backwards guitar, then... BANG! Yes, Feeder are back, back in a big way suggests the brilliant intro to 'Feeling A Moment.' It's glorious, it hits you and wakes you up, it shouts in your face with a ferocious, G-force velocity that blows the corners of your mouth back into a big, wide smile. It's a classic Feeder moment and it's brand new. You feel in that moment that 'Pushing The Senses' is going to be great, and those first impressions don't prove wrong.
This is the sum of the albums that have gone before, the chirpy melodies and special song-writing of 'Echo Park' met with the subtleties, sweetness and seriousness of 'Comfort In Sound.' The title track of this record is alike to some of Swim's classic sounds, the enthusiasm of 'Sweet Sixteen' and 'Stereo World' live again.
The sleeve design and album artwork layout is similar to that of Aya Takano's on 'Comfort in Sound' but Ryan Wallace's designs for 'Pushing The Senses' are more uplifting and celestial, pastoral images for an album all the more bright and open than certain predecessors. Everything Feeder produces, from the drawings on the covers to the lyrics in the songs emphasises the enormous strength and dedication of a band that can pull themselves through strife and tumultuous times to still bring to audiences easily edible, inspiring and soul-fulfilling music.
'Pushing The Senses' is a well-balanced feast with fair shares of rocky, epic entertainers and moving, melodic, acoustically-driven mood-enhancers. It's forty minutes from start to finish, but you won't have time to notice the time, being so immersed in the beauty and magnitude of the ten finely tuned songs on display on Feeder's new release.
It's been well over a year since the band's last full-length, a year that's seen many, many singles emerge from the Feeder camp, five from 2002's 'Comfort In Sound,' and, right on time, they're back with a grand and gorgeous recording, just when the world needed another nice and wholly fulfilling Feeder LP.
'Pushing The Senses' therefore comes highly recommended, with one of the most powerful and joyous introductions to an album in recent years, tracks like 'Morning Life' and 'Tender' that hark back to the early days, 'Bitter Glass' which has elements of the underrated single 'Turn' about it, and the strong debut single release from 'Pushing The Senses', 'Tumble And Fall', which should support this album's rise to the top of the charts and the public's hearts.