By rights, Feeder shouldn’t still be bothering us. Well, they’d probably be arousing sweaty teenagers somewhere but no-one else would be taking much notice. No-one would be writing about them, let alone playlisting their singles or exchanging precious cash for their latest album. But rather surprisingly, all three are happening right now and people do care. Where did it all start going right?
To their credit Feeder are getting better. Ok, so they couldn’t get much worse but that’s not the point. “Echo Park” was a positive sign of things to come and there’s no denying it rocked, but then tragedy struck with drummer Jon Lee‘s suicide. Perversely it spurred the band to delve deep and exorcise the demons on the impressive “Comfort In Sound”. Genuine inspiration albeit from the worst possible source.
So where does the confusing “Pushing The Senses” come in? Well, it's even more introspective, it's dominated by acoustic guitar and demands the use of such phrases as “dramatic”, “grandiose” and “epic” more often than not. This shouldn’t surprise you. Grant Nicholas, the driven heartbeat of Feeder, has never hidden his ambition nor has he shirked the chance to hitch a ride on the latest bandwagon passing his door.
Call him canny or brand him unimaginative, Nicholas is going to work his way up the charts even if it involves auctioning his granny on Ebay. Previously he’s looked stateside for “inspiration” in his Foo Fighters phase, but now Coldplay and Keane provide Feeder with their latest template to success. Suddenly he’s more morose than Thom Yorke doing Jeff Buckley karaoke, wailing away the minutes singing about nothing much at all.
Feeder are in danger of being a schizophrenic band, unrecognisable from their once “trademark” sound and prone to style swings on a whim. Bizarrely Nicholas recently found himself shoulder to shoulder with pop’s finest at the Band Aid 20 show. If Joss Stone didn’t know who Bob “Gandalf” was, then you can bet she probably asked Nicholas to fetch her bags from the car. If this is what he wanted then he’s accomplished some kind of goal. People do still care but at what price?
