It’s really, really hard to dislike Feeder.
Sure, there are some who’ll say that they’re past their prime. Some people are always going to pigeonhole them as ‘just another nineties band’, or as a band who should probably have called it quits a few years ago. That’s not true, though; their new album All Bright Electric is their best record for a decade, and there are enough genuinely fantastic rock songs on there to keep even the most insistent nineties-obsessed dinosaur happy.
Some people will tell you that they’ve spent their entire career trying to write a song as good as High. To that, we say bollocks – they’ve spent the last twenty years writing a hell of a lot of good songs, and you’re being a bit daft if you’re going to deny that.
Some might even want to tell you that they ‘sold out’ as soon as they wrote Buck Rodgers. To that, we wonder how you can argue with a song that does this to a crowd:
None of that matters, though.
Still, it doesn’t matter if you think they’re past their prime. It doesn’t matter if you think they wrote their best song twenty years ago, and it doesn’t matter if you think that they ‘sold out’ by writing a successful pop-rock song.
What matters is that they haven’t lost their energy, their drive, or their creative spark. What matters is that they’re still going, even after dealing with enough tragedy to drive an average man to drink. Above all else, what matters is that Feeder are still one of the most entertaining live rock bands in the country, and that that they tore the sodding roof off of the Camden Roundhouse when they played a sold-out show there last week.
Oh, where do we even begin
Let’s start with the setlist. It’s rare for a band to stay together for nearly twenty-five years, which means that it’s unusual for a band to have a back catalogue as big as Feeder’s to draw from. Sure, the biggest reactions were reserved for the likes of Just The Way I’m Feeling and Feeling A Moment, but there was more than enough in there to keep die-hard fans happy; heck, any band who have had twenty Top 40 singles and yet still find time to play a track from their second-ever EP (Sweet 16, from 1996’s Swim) are alright by us.
Their new songs went down a treat, too
We’re not lying when we say that their new album All Bright Electric is the best thing they’ve done for a decade. It’s classic Feeder; heavy guitars, big drums, and the sort of choruses that make you want to scream them at the top of your lungs, and it was built to be performed live.
Of the new tracks, it’s Universe Of Life that stands out; it’s a seventies-esque glam-rock belter of a rock song, it’s got one of the strongest choruses on the album, and it comes complete with the sort of guitar riff that sounds like it could knock down walls. Somehow, it sounded even better live than it does on record, and that’s really saying something:
In short, you should go and see them
We’re going to put this bluntly, because we think it’s important for you to know this: Feeder are a band who are still at the top of their game. They’re still writing top-notch songs, and they know how to perform them live. They’re energetic, they’re loud, and they’ve got enough hits to delight even the most nonchalant of gig-goers – we think you’d be a fool if you didn’t go to see them.
