THE FEELIES - ONLY LIFE

HEY

so sorry about the album covers, but the feelies albums aren't on wikipedia w/ cover art and i usually use that (hence the almost always uniform look). so, i'm going with different sizes from different sites.

SO THE ALBUM:

today, I got a dove ice cream bar at lunch. it was delicious. what happened was: I got 4 hours of sleep because I did laundry until 5am, and i had to wake up around 9 to record some improvised music for a play based on hitchcock films until 12ish. So, i got lunch (crispy chicken sandwich w/ fries), and after eating and buying the s-y tickets, i said "i want ice cream!". so, i walked towards the cooler thing, and it was good.

SO THE ICE CREAM:

well, its more of the same. but, this has more "hits". how so? i mean, no one actually likes the feelies. they only claim to so they can be like "dude, r.e.m. is like american apparel and urban outfitters and a hot dog stand and a mcdonalds and a band aid and the feelies are like a BLOODY band aid". But i mean, look - "deep fascination"? "higher ground"? "for awhile"? "away"???? i mean, I LOVE "away". that's a wonderful song. i mean, its got that suite intro there, and glenn's guitar licks are just all over and wonderful. honestly one of the feelies finest. hands down, along with their cover of "powderfinger" and any young wu album. and there's a velvet underground cover at the end. i think its the velvets - if not the velvets, solo lou reed, but im too lazy to check. and "undertow" sounds more like something from "the good earth", but it fits nicely here.

and once again, the entire record sounds great except one aspect - THE FRICKING DRUMS!!!!
i mean, how can you have such a rhythmically driven band and have such a band drum sound? the toms and bass drum blend together and the snare has some awful 80s gating or reverb or something on it that makes it sound like a shotgun all the time.
And, remember how different and cool "the good earth" sounded from "hazy scisms"? well, you coulda fooled me and called this album "the better earth" - not to say its a better album, but this at times feels like more of a "songs" album than an "album album".

still enjoyable though.

OVERALL RATING - GWAR! GWAR! GWAR! EMPIRE RECORDS! EMPIRE RECORDS!
KEY TRACKS - "higher ground", "too much" (which is excellent to sing along to while driving), "away", "the undertow