So close is the friendship between the Features and southern rock superstars Kings of Leon that this album was originally self-released in 2008, then re-released last year as the product of a joint venture of Bug Music and Kings of Leon that allowed Kings to sign and promote artists they were familiar with. The album was finally released on these shores in February this year, has your head stopped spinning? Then we’ll begin…
Kings of Leon might have had a hand in the promotion of this album but it is easy to disentangle the two bands, they both share a love of swashbuckling blues-rock but the Features do it louder and lean more towards pop sensibilities.
Vocalist Matthew Pelham varies between screaming and singing and the band have a fascination with dynamics that at times resembles Pixies, but there’s none of their subculture weirdness, the Features are much more straight-laced. Regardless there is no denying that this is great pop music, ‘GMF’, ‘Wooden Heart’ (no relation to Elvis) and ‘The Temporary Blues’ are brilliantly catchy pieces of music.
Despite their roots in south-eastern America, there’s an overwhelmingly British undercurrent to their music. Though to comment on the evident influence of the Kinks seems almost irrelevant, it is difficult to determine exactly what their antecedent sound is, they sound simultaneously like they could be inspired by any time in the past forty years.
Of course, that hardly makes them revolutionary and anyone looking for a life-changing revelation within will be disappointed. Nothing on this album will be particularly new to anyone who has listened to much rock music in recent years. But that is not to say that ‘Some Kind of Salvation’ is derivative. They may wear their influences on their sleeve but it’s hard to care when it sounds so good.
- Errors - 3 February 2012
- Jacob Yates and the Pearly Gate Lock Pickers - 25 June 2011
- A Torn Mind - 7 June 2011