The Feelies seem to be making up for lost time. New album In Between comes hard on the heels of 2011's Here Before and is their sixth album in thirty odd years. The inner sleeve photo updates of the impression made by the debut's cover, where the band looked like strange boys from the suburbs. Now they look like strange grownups from the suburbs. Modern lover's T-shirt and all.
Here Before is one of Culturebergs top spins of the decade; In Between is likely to join it.
The percussion is sparer - more claves, less full kit - with most songs built around a briskly strummed acoustic. A quick smattering of the song titles - Turn Back Time, Stay The Course, Pass The Time, When To Go, Been Replaced - and you're tuned in to the lyrical preoccupations,essayed with The Feelies' trademark deadpan fatalism.
The band are often compared to The Velvet Underground, and if Here Before was reminiscent of Loaded, In Between puts Cultureberg in mind of the Velvet's Third. It takes an immense amount of ability to keep things as simple as this. The sparse instrumentation and after-hours, autumnal reflection builds up through killer track Gone, Gone, Gone to album highlight and closer the 10 minute pounder In Between (reprise). Enrich your life and acquire this record.
