Feeder disappoint again (Echo Park - Feeder)

Member Name: hugon

Product:	Echo Park - Feeder
Date:	21/05/01 (142 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Buck Rodgers is still brilliant, Nice cover

Disadvantages: Lack of originality, Inconsistent, Over zealous producing

You have to feel sorry for Feeder. They’re a band that have always been on the edge of doing something big, yet they never seem to make the breakthrough into the bigger league. They produce great singles, but their albums tend to suffer from a lack of inspiration.

Their latest release, Echo Park suffers from the same failures. It’s the second Feeder album I’ve bought, and their third release so far. Tempted by the singles (the magnificent Buck Rodger’s and Seven Days in the Sun), I was mindful of the last album being a bit of a let down. I had even heard a few tracks in a Radio 1 broadcast and decided that it didn’t sound too bad, and decided to give it a go.

Should I have bothered? Well, it’s not bad as such, but it’s not the type of album you would miss if you didn’t have it. It has its highpoints, and there are a few good tracks to back the singles up, but most of it is uninspiring, and instantly forgettable once the track finished. The album also suffers from being somewhat over produced – the singles, Buck Rodgers in particular, had a bit of a “raw” quality that gave them a bit of life, but most of the album is dulled in comparison by some over-exuberant production that makes it sound too polished, and makes some of the tracks seem limp and lifeless.

The album also suffers from trying to sound too modern. It tries to embrace technology with some scratches here and there, and the occasional sample and bit of technical wizardry, but it just doesn’t manage to pull it off. I can’t help but feel if they’d sat down and recorded it live, pushing the volume up to 11, Spinal Tap style, that the record would have been a whole lot more appealing to me.

STANDING ON THE EDGE
Opening with some strange sample that sounds like a door closing and walking on gravel, it soon kicks into life with a guitar sound that swirls around your speakers, fading in and
out of focus, before being joined by some hazy vocals. It’s a prime example of the production being far too obtuse – the floaty, spiralling sound doesn’t impress, just irritates. It threatens to take a more normal twist, a heavy riff being thrashed out every so often, but it disappoints by turning back in on itself, getting quieter, the pattern being repeated a few more times before the riff is finally given precedence, taking control of the song, but too late to save it.

BUCK RODGERS
This would have been a far better song to begin the album with, grabbing your attention from the very start of the odd riff, a simple repeated with a small picked part played over the top of it. The vocals start before the song really leaps into life, grabbing you by the shirt collar and yanking you out of your seat, before throwing you headfirst into the chorus. The chorus is loud, anthemic and easy to sing along to, with a thick baseline that drives the song along, before the whole thing turns back into itself and repeats the loud/quiet thing with the second chorus. As a song, the production is a lot simpler, and that makes the song a whole lot easier to listen to – it’s a standard jump up and down song that sounds great up loud in a club.

PIECE BY PIECE
Starting with an almost dancey drumbeat, that stops and starts, and the first time you hear it you’ll look up and wonder why your CD player is skipping. When the song does get underway, it has a very mellow feel, a melodic picked guitar played over the muted drumbeat, with the vocals that sound far away, which are becoming to sound like a bit of a trademark for this album. The temporary pauses are actually quite annoying rather than clever – it takes a bit of getting used to the fact that the CD isn’t scratched. The song is very slow the whole way through and it has a very dreamy feel – everything sounds distant and far away. It gets dull after a few mi
nutes and by the end you welcome the break – it goes on for a little longer than is really needed, and the spark of the next song becomes very welcome.

SEVEN DAYS IN THE SUN
Another brash sing along anthem, the second single to be lifted from the album. It tells the tale of a holiday in Majorca (hence the title). It follows the trusty path of having a simple riff in the chorus, before coming to the boil in the chorus, the riff getting heavier and the vocals louder. It could be accused of being rock by numbers, and I guess that’s what it is, but has a bit of attitude and swagger, and it isn’t unpleasant to listen to. It does suffer from being very similar in sound to Buck Rodgers, but I suppose if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t need fixing.

WE CAN’T REWIND
A return to the quiet/loud formula is witnessed on this track, a simple, bare verse that relies on the kick of the chorus to drive the song. The verse is very sparse – vocals, minimal guitar and slow drums, and the riff in the chorus isn’t exactly heavy – the whole song has a relaxed feel, it doesn’t know if it wants to remain quiet or become a fully fledged rock number. It tries to convey a bit of attitude halfway through the song, leading to a bridge and an instrumental which tries to get a little emotion into the song, using the tried and tested key change, and by the end, a little more distortion is applied, and you just wonder why it took them so long to get the song to sound good.

TURN
This is one of my favourite tracks on the album and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of the singles to be lifted from the album. It isn’t heavy and it isn’t slow, it’s a cross between a rock song and a ballad. It has some of the best lyrics on the album, a simple love song, about wanting someone, but at the same time conveying what life is like on the road. It goes along the quiet verse, loud chorus patte
rn, but this time it doesn’t sound so forced. The vocals are subtle and gentle, even in the heavier chorus the vocals are still soft, conveying a little of the emotion of the song. The chorus is a nice contrast to the verse, it manages to lift the whole song from the introspective nature of the verse, giving an idea of the hope this love inspires.

CHOKE
As soon as this song starts, you’d be forgiven you’d walked into Seven Days in the Sun mark 2. The guitar and initial riff sounds exactly the same, but you’ll be disappointed that the song doesn’t really even come close in terms of quality. The verse has an irritating picked guitar, there’s occasional feedback which is just plain painful. Moving into the chorus, the vocals yell, “choke” and I’m thinking “please do”. The chorus has messy guitar work, annoyingly distorted vocals and at times tries ridiculously hard to get heavy, but just ends up making them look stupid, while they recycle the Seven Days riff. It’s a song that’s best skipped over really – poorly produced and executed, it isn’t even up to b-side standard.

OXYGEN
I get the impression that they where intending this to be their epic ballad on the album, but it falls short of the mark. It has a slow, almost hypnotic picked guitar to open with, which is joined by some vocals, and the whole sound is thoughtful and introspective, but you are left with the impression that they are trying to hard to get it across. The chorus doesn’t really add anything to the song – it’s trying to provide a more positive outlook on the verse, but it isn’t bright enough, before we dive back down into the verse again. The vocals do intend to sound sad and sombre, but instead they just end up sounding tired and bored. It’s a shame as it does have some nice lyrics, but the transition between positivity and negativity in the sounds never re
ally comes off to benefit the song. You’re in for a laugh halfway when he screams to try and let the emotions out, and ends up sounding much like a cat whose tail has just been trodden on.

TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS
Finally we get a song where we can actually hear the bass, opening with a nice bass line and a quiet guitar part played over the top of it, then the vocals come in with that little bit of echo. It builds up a little and the drums ignite a bit of life in the song, a bit of drive and aggression that you can actually tap your foot along to, but it’s short-lived and it heads back to the base and quiet guitar. When the song finally gets going, the impact has been lost and it doesn’t quite take off. The guitar isn’t really prominent enough, and the vocals don’t really have enough impact to carry the song.

UNDER THE WEATHER
This one starts off a lot more promisingly, with an excellent riff before completely losing it – the guitar completely cuts out and we’re left with a simple drumbeat, the bass and the vocals. Put simply – it doesn’t work. If they’re looking for a “lighters in the air” moment, they’ll be disappointed. Granted, the guitar does kick back in again, but the superb riff has been lost and instead replaced by a much simpler one, with an annoying picked part over it, then it loses the guitar again. The song really is bad, it doesn’t know what it wants to do, it soon morphs into a shouty mass of feedback, before turning back to just the vocals. It sounds patched together and messy; it’s trying to have witty lyrics, which don’t really work. There are to many direction changes in the song for it to stand any chance of working, it just left me feeling dizzy and disorientated.

SATELLITE NEWS
This is the longest song on the album, and it starts of simply, a quiet, slow guitar and relaxed and soft vocals, eventually it all come
s together, there’s a bit of life injected into the song – the mood lifts, the vocals sound a lot more hopeful, the guitar brighter and you think “This isn’t so bad”, before it lapses back into the verse again. The only problem is that the verse is slightly too long, you’re wanting the chorus back before it actually comes back in, but when the chorus does come in it’s welcome. It benefits from the much simpler production, and the sparsity of it all. For once on the album, it sounds smooth and the instruments actually complement each other. At five and a half minutes it is a tad long, but it is easy to lose yourself in the song. It’s nice with the lights down and your eyes closed, it puts hope in your heart and a smile on your face. Definitely one of the highlights of the album.

BUG
This song has a much rawer edge to it; it wouldn’t sound out of place coming straight out of the seventies. The guitar is basic and edgy, the drum simple and fast, the bassline driving the song along effectively. The only drawback is the vocals, which are far too heavily distorted. The chorus, simply “revolution” repeated over and over, seems a little out of place – Feeder are hardly a band associated with revolution. It ends up trying to hard to be controversial and angry, the shouted vocals aren’t convincing and will make you cringe. It’s a limp finish to a rather disappointing album.

When you look at singles like High and Insomnia, it is hard to fathom why Feeder can’t pull off the trick on albums. To be fair to them on this album, I think they are a victim of production, producer Gil Norton trying to hard to be modern and trendy, and just twiddling too many knobs – Feeder are one of those simple rock bands, just let them do what they do best. I didn’t mean to lay into the album so much, but when you look at each song individually, it became clear that this album
could have been a lot better if produced in a different style – in a lot of the songs the tune has been hidden behind a lot of technology.

Feeder are unfortunately one of those bands that you like, but you’ll never love. If you have a spare £12, there are many worse things to spend your money on, but you could go and buy an older album by a more respected artist, because you’d get more value for your money that way. Sorry guys, you have to try harder, but I’m looking forward to the singles collection at the end of it all – they’re one of those bands that produces some great singles, but just don’t have the consistency to pull it off when it comes to their albums.

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